Search for dinucleon decay into pions at Super-Kamiokande
Creators: name: Gustafson, J.
name: Abe, K.
name: Haga, Y.
name: Hayato, Y.
name: Ikeda, M.
name: Iyogi, K.
name: Kameda, J.
name: Kishimoto, Y.
name: Miura, M.
name: Moriyama, S.
name: Nakahata, M.
name: Nakajima, T.
name: Nakano, Y.
name: Nakayama, S.
name: Orii, A.
name: Sekiya, H.
name: Shiozawa, M.
name: Takeda, A.
name: Tanaka, H.
name: Tomura, T.
name: Wendell, R. A.
name: Irvine, T.
name: Kajita, T.
name: Kametani, I.
name: Kaneyuki, K.
name: Nishimura, Y.
name: Richard, E.
name: Okumura, K.
name: Labarga, L.
name: Fernandez, P.
name: Berkman, S.
name: Tanaka, H. A.
name: Tobayama, S.
name: Kearns, E.
name: Raaf, J. L.
name: Stone, J. L.
name: Sulak, L. R.
name: Goldhaber, M.
name: Carminati, G.
name: Kropp, W. R.
name: Mine, S.
name: Weatherly, P.
name: Renshaw, A.
name: Smy, M. B.
name: Sobel, H. W.
name: Takhistov, V.
name: Ganezer, K. S.
name: Hartfiel, B. L.
name: Hill, J.
name: Hong, N.
name: Kim, J. Y.
name: Lim, I. T.
name: Akiri, T.
name: Himmel, A.
name: Scholberg, K.
name: Walter, C. W.
name: Wongjirad, T.
name: Ishizuka, T.
name: Tasaka, S.
name: Jang, J. S.
name: Learned, J. G.
name: Matsuno, S.
name: Smith, S. N.
name: Hasegawa, T.
name: Ishida, T.
name: Ishii, T.
name: Kobayashi, T.
name: Nakadaira, T.
name: Nakamura, K.
name: Oyama, Y.
name: Sakashita, K.
name: Sekiguchi, T.
name: Suzuki, T. TsukamotoA. T.
name: Takeuchi, Y.
name: Yano, T.
name: Hirota, S.
name: Huang, K.
name: Ieki, K.
name: Kikawa, T.
name: Minamino, A.
name: Nakaya, T.
name: Suzuki, K.
name: Takahashi, S.
name: Fukuda, Y.
name: Choi, K.
name: Itow, Y.
name: Mitsuka, G.
name: Suzuki, T.
name: Mijakowski, P.
name: Hignight, J.
name: Imber, J.
name: Jung, C. K.
name: Palomino, J. L.
name: Yanagisawa, C.
name: Ishino, H.
name: Kayano, T.
name: Kibayashi, A.
name: Koshio, Y.
name: Mori, T.
name: Sakuda, M.
name: Kuno, Y.
name: Tacik, R.
name: Kim, S. B.
name: Okazawa, H.
name: Choi, Y.
name: Nishijima, K.
name: Koshiba, M.
name: Suda, Y.
name: Totsuka, Y.
name: Yokoyama, M.
name: Bronner, C.
name: Martens, K.
name: Marti, Ll.
name: Suzuki, Y.
name: Vagins, M. R.
name: Martin, J. F.
name: de Perio, P.
name: Konaka, A.
name: Wilking, M. J.
name: Chen, S.
name: Zhang, Y.
name: Wilkes, R. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: A search for dinucleon decay into pions with the Super-Kamiokande detector has been performed with an exposure of 282.1 kiloton-years. Dinucleon decay is a process that violates baryon number by two units. We present the first search for dinucleon decay to pions in a large water Cherenkov detector. The modes $^{16}$O$(pp) \rightarrow$ $^{14}$C$π^{+}π^{+}$, $^{16}$O$(pn) \rightarrow$ $^{14}$N$π^{+}π^{0}$, and $^{16}$O$(nn) \rightarrow$ $^{14}$O$π^{0}π^{0}$ are investigated. No significant excess in the Super-Kamiokande data has been found, so a lower limit on the lifetime of the process per oxygen nucleus is determined. These limits are: $τ_{pp\rightarrowπ^{+}π^{+}} &gt; 7.22 \times 10^{31}$ years, $τ_{pn\rightarrowπ^{+}π^{0}} &gt; 1.70 \times 10^{32}$ years, and $τ_{nn\rightarrowπ^{0}π^{0}} &gt; 4.04 \times 10^{32}$ years. The lower limits on each mode are about two orders of magnitude better than previous limits from searches for dinucleon decay in iron.
description: 20 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D on March 30, 2015