Super-Kamiokande

Super-Kamiokande is an underground water-Cherenkov observatory in Japan that detects neutrinos and cosmic rays by recording light from charged particles in water.

Cherenkov radiation: Light emitted when a charged particle travels through a medium faster than light travels in that medium. Charged particles from neutrino interactions produce the light recorded by the detector.
Atmospheric neutrino anomaly: The observed deficit of muon neutrinos relative to electron neutrinos in cosmic-ray-produced atmospheric samples. Super-Kamiokande established that the deficit varied with travel distance, revealing oscillation.
Kamioka Observatory: A Japanese underground research facility in the Kamioka mine that hosts major neutrino experiments. Super-Kamiokande is the observatory’s best-known detector, built within this research site.
IceCube Neutrino Observatory: A neutrino observatory that uses a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice instrumented with optical sensors. IceCube uses natural ice and targets higher-energy neutrinos, unlike Super-Kamiokande’s water tank.
Photomultiplier tube: A highly sensitive vacuum tube that converts individual photons into amplified electrical signals. Thousands of these sensors line the tank and register faint Cherenkov light.
Solar neutrino problem: The historical mismatch between predicted and initially measured solar neutrino fluxes. Super-Kamiokande measured solar neutrino direction and flux as the discrepancy was resolved through oscillations.
Kamiokande: An earlier Japanese water-Cherenkov detector that observed neutrinos and helped establish neutrino astronomy. Its results and design informed the larger Super-Kamiokande successor.
SNO experiment: A Canadian heavy-water neutrino observatory that resolved the solar neutrino problem by measuring multiple interaction channels. SNO’s heavy water enabled a direct comparison of neutrino flavors distinct from Super-Kamiokande’s approach.
Neutrino interaction: A collision or transformation involving a neutrino and another particle or nucleus. Such interactions create the charged particles whose tracks reveal neutrinos.
Supernova neutrino astronomy: The study of supernovae through neutrinos emitted during stellar collapse and explosion. The observatory can detect a burst from a nearby core-collapse supernova.

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