Measurement of the branching ratio of ¹⁶N, ¹⁵C, ¹²B, and ¹³B isotopes through the nuclear muon capture reaction in the Super-Kamiokande detector

Abstract

The Super-Kamiokande detector has measured solar neutrinos for more than 25 years. The sensitivity for solar neutrino measurement is limited by the uncertainties of energy scale and background modeling. Decays of unstable isotopes with relatively long half-lives through nuclear muon capture, such as N16, C15, B12, and B13, are detected as background events for solar neutrino observations. In this study, we developed a method to form a pair of stopping muon and decay candidate events and evaluated the production rates of such unstable isotopes. We then measured their branching ratios considering both their production rates and the estimated number of nuclear muon capture processes as Br(N16)=(9.0±0.1)%, Br(C15)=(0.6±0.1)%, Br(B12)=(0.98±0.18)%, Br(B13)=(0.14±0.12)%, respectively. The result for N16 has world-leading precision at present and the results for C15, B12, and B13 are the first branching ratio measurements for those isotopes.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Maekawa, Y. Abe, K. Abe, S. Asaoka, Y. Harada, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3273-946X Hayato, Y. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-5038 Hiraide, K. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1229-9452 Hosokawa, K. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8766-3629 Ieki, K. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7791-5044 Ikeda, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4177-5828 Kameda, J. Kanemura, Y. Kataoka, Y. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9090-4801 Miki, S. Mine, S. Miura, M. Moriyama, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7630-2839 Nakahata, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7783-9080 Nakayama, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9145-714X Noguchi, Y. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3113-3127 Pronost, G. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6429-5387 Sato, K. Sekiya, H. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9034-0436 Shimizu, K. Shinoda, R. Shiozawa, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0520-3520 Suzuki, Y. Takeda, A. Takemoto, Y. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2232-7277 Tanaka, H. 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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Physical Review C is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords:	Nuclear and Plasma Physics; Particle and High Energy Physics; Synchrotrons and Accelerators; Physical Sciences
Dates:	Accepted: 8 December 2025 Published (online): 31 December 2025 Published: 31 December 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Date Deposited:	21 Jan 2026 11:36
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2026 11:36
Status:	Published
Publisher:	American Physical Society (APS)
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1103/b93l-dbpj
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:236781

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Measurement of the branching ratio of ¹⁶N, ¹⁵C, ¹²B, and ¹³B isotopes through the nuclear muon capture reaction in the Super-Kamiokande detector

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