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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Maekawa, Y, Abe, K, Abe, S, Asaoka, Y, Harada, M, Hayato, Y, Hiraide, K, Hosokawa, K, Ieki, K, Ikeda, M et al (show 258 more authors) , Kameda, J, Kanemura, Y, Kataoka, Y, Miki, S, Mine, S, Miura, M, Moriyama, S, Nakahata, M, Nakayama, S, Noguchi, Y, Pronost, G, Sato, K, Sekiya, H, Shimizu, K, Shinoda, R, Shiozawa, M, Suzuki, Y, Takeda, A, Takemoto, Y, Tanaka, H, Yano, T, Itow, Y, Kajita, T, Nishijima, R, Okumura, K, Tashiro, T, Tomiya, T, Wang, X, Fernandez, P, Labarga, L, Samudio, D, Zaldivar, B, Yanagisawa, C, Kearns, E, Mirabito, J, Wan, L, Wester, T, Pointon, BW, Bian, J, Cortez, B, Griskevich, NJ, Jiang, Y, Smy, MB, Sobel, HW, Takhistov, V, Yankelevich, A, Hill, J, Jang, MC, Lee, SH, Moon, DH, Park, RG, Yang, BS, Bodur, B, Scholberg, K, Walter, CW, Beauchene, A, Drapier, O, Ershova, A, Mueller, Th A, Santos, AD, Paganini, P, Quach, C, Rogly, R, Nakamura, T, Jang, JS, Litchfield, RP, Machado, LN, Soler, FJP, Learned, JG, Choi, K, Iovine, N, Cao, S, Anthony, LHV, Martin, D, Prouse, NW, Scott, M, Uchida, Y, Berardi, V, Calabria, NF, Catanesi, MG, Ospina, N, Radicioni, E, Langella, A, De Rosa, G, Collazuol, G, Feltre, M, Mattiazzi, M, Ludovici, L, Gonin, M, Perisse, L, Quilain, B, Horiuchi, S, Kawabata, A, Kobayashi, M, Liu, YM, Nishimura, Y, Okazaki, R, Akutsu, R, Friend, M, Hasegawa, T, Hino, Y, Ishida, T, Kobayashi, T, Jakkapu, M, Matsubara, T, Nakadaira, T, Nakamura, K, Oyama, Y, Yrey, A Portocarrero, Sakashita, K, Sekiguchi, T, Tsukamoto, T, Bhuiyan, N, Burton, GT, Kralik, R, Latham, N, Di Lodovico, F, Gao, J, Katori, T, Migenda, J, Ramsden, RM, Xie, Z, Zsoldos, S, Ito, H, Sone, T, Suzuki, AT, Takagi, Y, Takeuchi, Y, Wada, S, Zhong, H, Feng, J, Feng, L, Han, S, Hikida, J, Hu, JR, Hu, Z, Kawaue, M, Kikawa, T, Nakaya, T, Ngoc, TV, Wendell, RA, Yasutome, K, Jenkins, SJ ORCID: 0000-0002-0982-8141, McCauley, N ORCID: 0000-0002-5982-5125, Tarrant, A, Fani, M, Wilking, MJ, Xie, Z, Fukuda, Y, Menjo, H, Yoshioka, Y, Lagoda, J, Mandal, M, Prabhu, YS, Zalipska, J, Mori, M, Jia, M, Jiang, J, Shi, W, Hamaguchi, K, Ishino, H, Koshio, Y, Nakanishi, F, Sakai, S, Tada, T, Tano, T, Ishizuka, T, Barr, G, Barrow, D, Cook, L, Samani, S, Wark, D, Holin, A, Nova, F, Jung, S, Yang, JY, Yoo, J, Fannon, JEP, Kneale, L, Malek, M, McElwee, JM, Peacock, T, Stowell, P, Thiesse, MD, Thompson, LF, Wilson, ST, Okazawa, H, Lakshmi, SM, Kwon, E, Lee, MW, Seo, JW, Yu, I, Ichikawa, AK, Nakamura, KD, Tairafune, S, Eguchi, A, Goto, S, Hayasaki, H, Kodama, S, Masaki, Y, Mizuno, Y, Muro, T, Nakagiri, K, Nakajima, Y, Taniuchi, N, Watanabe, E, Yokoyama, M, de Perio, P, Fujita, S, Jesus-Valls, C, Martens, K, Marti, Ll, Tsui, KM, Vagins, MR, Xia, J, Izumiyama, S, Kuze, M, Matsumoto, R, Terada, K, Asaka, R, Ishitsuka, M, Shinoki, M, Sugo, M, Wako, M, Yamauchi, K, Yoshida, T, Nakano, Y, Cormier, F, Gaur, R, Gousy-Leblanc, V, Hartz, M, Konaka, A, Li, X, Smithers, BR, Chen, S, Wu, Y, Xu, BD, Zhang, AQ, Zhang, B, Girgus, M, Govindaraj, P, Posiadala-Zezula, M, Prabhu, YS, Boyd, SB, Edwards, R, Hadley, D, Nicholson, M, O'Flaherty, M, Richards, B, Ali, A, Jamieson, B, Amanai, S, Bronner, C, Horiguchi, D, Minamino, A, Sasaki, Y, Shibayama, R and Shimamura, R (2025) Measurement of the branching ratio of ¹⁶N, ¹⁵C, ¹²B, and ¹³B isotopes through the nuclear muon capture reaction in the Super-Kamiokande detector PHYSICAL REVIEW C, 112 (6). 064614-. ISSN 2469-9985, 2469-9993

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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 ¹⁶N, ¹⁵C, ¹²B, and ¹³B, 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(¹⁶N) = (9.0 ± 0.1)%,Br(¹⁵C) = (0.6 ± 0.1)%, Br(¹²B) = (0.98 ±0.18)%, Br(¹³B) = (0.14 ± 0.12)%, respectively. The result for ¹⁶N has world-leading precision at present and the results for ¹⁵C, ¹²B, and ¹³B are the first branching ratio measurements for those isotopes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	5106 Nuclear and Plasma Physics, 5107 Particle and High Energy Physics, 5110 Synchrotrons and Accelerators, 51 Physical Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Science & Engineering Faculty of Science & Engineering > School of Physical Sciences Faculty of Science & Engineering > School of Physical Sciences > Physics
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	30 Jan 2026 15:19
Last Modified:	16 Jun 2026 07:29
DOI:	10.1103/b93l-dbpj
Open Access URL:	https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18110
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3196793
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