Search for GUT Monopoles at Super-Kamiokande
Creators: name: Kamiokande Collaboration
name: Ueno, K.
name: Abe, K.
name: Hayato, Y.
name: Iida, T.
name: Iyogi, K.
name: Kameda, J.
name: Koshio, Y.
name: Kozuma, Y.
name: Miura, M.
name: Moriyama, S.
name: Nakahata, M.
name: Nakayama, S.
name: Obayashi, Y.
name: Sekiya, H.
name: Shiozawa, M.
name: Suzuki, Y.
name: Takeda, A.
name: Takenaga, Y.
name: Ueshima, K.
name: Yamada, S.
name: Yokozawa, T.
name: Martens, K.
name: Schuemann, J.
name: Vagins, M.
name: Ishihara, C.
name: Kaji, H.
name: Kajita, T.
name: Kaneyuki, K.
name: McLachlan, T.
name: Okumura, K.
name: Shimizu, Y.
name: Tanimoto, N.
name: Kearns, E.
name: Litos, M.
name: Raaf, J. L.
name: Stone, J. L.
name: Sulak, L. R.
name: Bays, K.
name: Kropp, W. R.
name: Mine, S.
name: Regis, C.
name: Renshaw, A.
name: Smy, M. B.
name: Sobel, H. W.
name: Ganezer, K. S.
name: Hill, J.
name: Keig, W. E.
name: Jang, J. S.
name: Kim, J. Y.
name: Lim, I. T.
name: Albert, J. B.
name: Scholberg, K.
name: Walter, C. W.
name: Wendell, R.
name: Wongjirad, T.
name: Ishizuka, T.
name: Tasaka, S.
name: Learned, J. G.
name: Matsuno, S.
name: Hasegawa, T.
name: Ishida, T.
name: Ishii, T.
name: Kobayashi, T.
name: Nakadaira, T.
name: Nakamura, K.
name: Nishikawa, K.
name: Oyama, Y.
name: Sakashita, K.
name: Sekiguchi, T.
name: Tsukamoto, T.
name: Suzuki, A. T.
name: Takeuchi, Y.
name: Ikeda, M.
name: Minamino, A.
name: Nakaya, T.
name: Labarga, L.
name: Marti, Ll.
name: Fukuda, Y.
name: Itow, Y.
name: Mitsuka, G.
name: Tanaka, T.
name: Jung, C. K.
name: Lopez, G.
name: Taylor, I.
name: Yanagisawa, C.
name: Ishino, H.
name: Kibayashi, A.
name: Mino, S.
name: Mori, T.
name: Sakuda, M.
name: Toyota, H.
name: Kuno, Y.
name: Yoshida, M.
name: Kim, S. B.
name: Yang, B. S.
name: Okazawa, H.
name: Choi, Y.
name: Nishijima, K.
name: Koshiba, M.
name: Totsuka, Y.
name: Yokoyama, M.
name: Chen, S.
name: Heng, Y.
name: Yang, Z.
name: Zhang, H.
name: Kielczewska, D.
name: Mijakowski, P.
name: Connolly, K.
name: Dziomba, M.
name: Thrane, E.
name: Wilkes, R. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: GUT monopoles captured by the Sun's gravitation are expected to catalyze proton decays via the Callan-Rubakov process. In this scenario, protons, which initially decay into pions, will ultimately produce ν_{e}, ν_μ and \barν_μ. After undergoing neutrino oscillation, all neutrino species appear when they arrive at the Earth, and can be detected by a 50,000 metric ton water Cherenkov detector, Super-Kamiokande (SK). A search for low energy neutrinos in the electron total energy range from 19 to 55 MeV was carried out with SK and gives a monopole flux limit of F_M(σ_0/1 mb) &lt; 6.3 \times 10^{-24} (β_M/10^{-3})^2 cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} at 90% C.L., where β_M is the monopole velocity in units of the speed of light and σ_0 is the catalysis cross section at β_M=1. The obtained limit is more than eight orders of magnitude more stringent than the current best cosmic-ray supermassive monopole flux limit, F_M &lt; 1 \times 10^{-15} cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1} for β_M &lt; 10^{-3} and also two orders of magnitude lower than the result of the Kamiokande experiment, which used a similar detection method.
description: 15 pages, 6 figures