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This paper reports the development and detailed properties of about 13 metric tons of gadolinium sulfate octahydrate, $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$, which has been dissolved into Super-Kamiokande (SK) in the summer of 2020. We evaluate the impact of radioactive impurities in $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$ on diffuse supernova neutrino background searches and solar neutrino observation and confirm the need to reduce radioactive and fluorescent impurities by about three orders of magnitude from commercially available high-purity $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$. In order to produce ultra-high-purity $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$, we have developed a method to remove impurities from gadolinium oxide, Gd2O3, consisting of acid dissolution, solvent extraction, and pH control processes, followed by a high-purity sulfation process. All of the produced ultra-high-purity $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$ is assayed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and high-purity germanium detectors to evaluate its quality. Because of the long measurement time of high-purity germanium detectors, we have employed several underground laboratories for making parallel measurements including the Laboratorio Subterráneo de Canfranc in Spain, Boulby in the UK, and Kamioka in Japan. In the first half of production, the measured batch purities were found to be consistent with the specifications. However, in the latter half, the $\rm Gd_2(\rm SO_4)_3\cdot \rm 8H_2O$ contained one order of magnitude more 228Ra than the budgeted mean contamination. This was correlated with the corresponding characteristics of the raw material Gd2O3, in which an intrinsically large contamination was present. Based on their modest impact on SK physics, they were nevertheless introduced into the detector. To reduce 228Ra for the next stage of gadolinium loading to SK, a new process has been successfully established.

We report a measurement of decay-time-dependent charge-parity ($CP$) asymmetries in$B^0\to K_S^0{K}_S^0{K}_S^0$decays. We use$387\times {10}^6$$B\overline{B}$pairs collected at the$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)$resonance with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy electron-positron collider. We reconstruct 220 signal events and extract the$CP$-violating parameters$S$and$C$from a fit to the distribution of the decay-time difference between the two$B$mesons. The resulting confidence region is consistent with previous measurements in$B^0\to K_S^0{K}_S^0{K}_S^0$and$B^0\to (c\overline{c})K^0$decays and with predictions based on the standard model.

We search for the rare decay$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$in a$362{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$sample of electron-positron collisions at the$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)$resonance collected with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB collider. We use the inclusive properties of the accompanying$B$meson in$\mathrm{\Upsilon }(4S)\to B\overline{B}$events to suppress background from other decays of the signal$B$candidate and light-quark pair production. We validate the measurement with an auxiliary analysis based on a conventional hadronic reconstruction of the accompanying$B$meson. For background suppression, we exploit distinct signal features using machine learning methods tuned with simulated data. The signal-reconstruction efficiency and background suppression are validated through various control channels. The branching fraction is extracted in a maximum likelihood fit. Our inclusive and hadronic analyses yield consistent results for the$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$branching fraction of$[2.7\pm 0.5(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.5(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$and$[{1.1}_{-0.8}^{+0.9}(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.5}^{+0.8}(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$, respectively. Combining the results, we determine the branching fraction of the decay$B^{+}\to K^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$to be$[2.3\pm 0.5(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.4}^{+0.5}(\mathrm{syst})]\times {10}^{-5}$, providing the first evidence for this decay at 3.5 standard deviations. The combined result is 2.7 standard deviations above the standard model expectation.

We report results from a study ofB^±→ DK^±decays followed byDdecaying to theCP-even final stateK⁺K⁻and CP-odd final state$$ {K}_S^0{\pi}^0 $$$K_S^0{\pi }^0$, whereDis an admixture ofD⁰and$$ {\overline{D}}^0 $$${\overline{D}}^0$states. These decays are sensitive to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa unitarity-triangle angleϕ₃. The results are based on a combined analysis of the final data set of 772×10⁶$$ B\overline{B} $$$B\overline{B}$pairs collected by the Belle experiment and a data set of 198×10⁶$$ B\overline{B} $$$B\overline{B}$pairs collected by the Belle II experiment, both in electron-positron collisions at the Υ(4S) resonance. We measure the CP asymmetries to be$$ \mathcal{A} $$$A$_CP+= (+12.5±5.8±1.4)% and$$ \mathcal{A} $$$A$_CP−= (−16.7±5.7±0.6)%, and the ratios of branching fractions to be$$ \mathcal{R} $$$R$_CP+= 1.164±0.081±0.036 and$$ \mathcal{R} $$$R$_CP−= 1.151±0.074±0.019. The first contribution to the uncertainties is statistical, and the second is systematic. The asymmetries$$ \mathcal{A} $$$A$_CP+and$$ \mathcal{A} $$$A$_CP−have similar magnitudes and opposite signs; their difference corresponds to 3.5 standard deviations. From these values we calculate 68.3% confidence intervals of (8.5^°<ϕ₃< 16.5^°) or (84.5^°<ϕ₃< 95.5^°) or (163.3^°<ϕ₃< 171.5^°) and 0.321 <r_B< 0.465.