Hyper-Kamiokande: status and perspectives

by Lucio Ludovici (INFN Roma)

Monday 27 Feb 2023, 14:30 → 16:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

Hyper-Kamiokande is a multi-purpose next generation neutrino experiment under construction in Japan. It will be the world largest underground water Cherenkov detector, with a fiducial volume 8 times larger than his predecessor, Super-Kamiokande. The inner detector will be surrounded by tens of thousands new photosensors, 20’’ diameter PMTs and multi-PMT modules, to detect water Cherenkov radiation with significant performance improvements. It will be an observatory of neutrinos from astrophysical sources, supernova burst neutrinos and supernova relic neutrinos and of rare phenomena like nucleon decay. At the same time it will be used as far detector for a long baseline experiment with neutrinos produced at the JPARC accelerator, 295 km away, presently used by the T2K experiment. A near detector suite, close to the accelerator, will characterise the beam and minimize systematic errors. In combination with the upgraded 1.3 MW neutrino beam, Hyper-Kamiokande will be able to measure neutrino oscillation with unprecedented statistical precision, enabling the discovery of CP violation and the precise measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillation. 

The experiment is under construction and due to start data taking in 2027. The Italian contributions to Hyper-Kamiokande cover critical components like the multi-PMT modules and the front-end electronics of the 20’’ PMTs. An overview of the experiment will be given, with a discussion of its physics goals, current status and perspectives.