Search for GUT Monopoles at Super-Kamiokande
Abstract
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 e, μ and 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 FM(σ0/1 mb) < 6.3 × 10-24 (βM/10-3)2 cm-2 s-1 sr-1 at 90% C.L., where βM is the monopole velocity in units of the speed of light and σ0 is the catalysis cross section at βM=1. The obtained limit is more than eight orders of magnitude more stringent than the current best cosmic-ray supermassive monopole flux limit, FM < 1 × 10-15 cm-2 s-1 sr-1 for βM < 10-3 and also two orders of magnitude lower than the result of the Kamiokande experiment, which used a similar detection method.
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