A Cherenkov light cone in the water of one of two Hyper-Kamiokande tanks
Hyper-Kamiokande is a next-generation underground water Cherenkov detector, based on the highly successful Super-Kamiokande experiment. It consists of two cylindrical tanks, each with a
height of 60 m and a diameter of 74 m. The tanks are filled with half a million tons of ultrapure water, a volume approximately 10 times larger
than that of Super-Kamiokande. On the walls of the tanks, 88,000 ultrasensitive photo-sensors are
installed, in order to detect the very weak Cherenkov light generated in
the ultrapure water.
Hyper-Kamiokande will serve as a far detector, 295 km away, of a long baseline neutrino experiment for the upgraded J-PARC beam. It will elucidate neutrino properties such as the CP violation of neutrinos and the ordering of neutrino masses. It will also be a detector capable of observing - far beyond the sensitivity of the Super-Kamiokande detector - proton decay, atmospheric neutrinos, solar neutrinos and neutrinos from astronomical sources.
PPD is actively involved in Hyper-Kamiokande, specifically in the areas of the data acquisition system, light injection design and simulation studies for detector optimization.
