{"paper":{"title":"Spallation Backgrounds in Super-Kamiokande Are Made in Muon-Induced Showers","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["astro-ph.HE","hep-ex","nucl-ex","nucl-th"],"primary_cat":"hep-ph","authors_text":"John F. Beacom (Ohio State University), Shirley Weishi Li","submitted_at":"2015-03-16T20:01:12Z","abstract_excerpt":"Crucial questions about solar and supernova neutrinos remain unanswered. Super-Kamiokande has the exposure needed for progress, but detector backgrounds are a limiting factor. A leading component is the beta decays of isotopes produced by cosmic-ray muons and their secondaries, which initiate nuclear spallation reactions. Cuts of events after and surrounding muon tracks reduce this spallation decay background by $\\simeq 90\\%$ (at a cost of $\\simeq 20\\%$ deadtime), but its rate at 6--18 MeV is still dominant. A better way to cut this background was suggested in a Super-Kamiokande paper [Bays {\\"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1503.04823","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}