Reactor Antineutrino Oscillations at Super-Kamiokande

TL;DR

Super-Kamiokande with gadolinium can detect reactor antineutrino oscillations driven by the solar mass-squared difference, providing a new measurement to resolve existing experimental tensions.

Contribution

This paper proposes using Super-Kamiokande's enhanced capabilities to observe reactor antineutrino oscillations and measure $ m^2_{21}$ with high precision after one year.

Findings

SK can observe reactor antineutrino oscillations driven by $ m^2_{21}$

Potential to resolve tensions between KamLAND and solar neutrino results

Estimated measurement of $ m^2_{21}$ within one year

Abstract

SuperKamiokande (SK) doped with gadolinium has the capability to efficiently identify electron-antineutrinos through inverse beta-decay. Given the size of SK and the number of nuclear reactors in its vicinity, we argue that SK can observe the oscillations of reactor antineutrinos driven by the so-called solar mass-squared difference $\Delta m^2_{21}$. After only one year of data taking, we estimate that SK can measure $\Delta m^2_{21}$ with enough precision to help inform the current small tension between existing results from KamLAND and solar neutrino experiments.