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Abstract Observation of anti-neutrinos emitted from radioactive isotopes inside Earth(geo-neutrinos) brings direct information on the Earth’s chemical composition and its heat balance, which strongly relate to the Earth’s dynamics. To date, two experiments (KamLAND and Borexino) have measured geo-neutrinos and constrained the range of acceptable models for the Earth’s chemical composition, but distinguishing the mantle flux by land-based detectors is challenging as the crust signal is about 70% of the total anti-neutrino flux. Given the oceanic crust is thinner and has lower concentration of radioactive elements than continental crust, geo-neutrino detector in the ocean, Ocean Bottom Detector (OBD), makes it sensitive to geo-neutrinos originating from the Earth’s mantle. Our working group was jointly constructed from interdisciplinary communities in Japan which include particle physics, geoscience, and ocean engineering. We have started to work on technological developments of OBD. We are now developing a 20 kg prototype liquid scintillator detector. This detector will undergo operation deployment tests at 1 km depth seafloor in 2022.

We present the results of a search for core-collapse supernova neutrinos, using long-term KamLAND data from 2002 March 9 to 2020 April 25. We focus on the electron antineutrinos emitted from supernovae in the energy range of 1.8–111 MeV. Supernovae will make a neutrino event cluster with the duration of ∼10 s in the KamLAND data. We find no neutrino clusters and give the upper limit on the supernova rate to be 0.15 yr⁻¹with a 90% confidence level. The detectable range, which corresponds to a >95% detection probability, is 40–59 kpc and 65–81 kpc for core-collapse supernovae and failed core-collapse supernovae, respectively. This paper proposes to convert the supernova rate obtained by the neutrino observation to the Galactic star formation rate. Assuming a modified Salpeter-type initial mass function, the upper limit on the Galactic star formation rate is <(17.5–22.7)M_⊙yr⁻¹with a 90% confidence level.

Abstract We present the results of a time-coincident event search for low-energy electron antineutrinos in the KamLAND detector with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) from the Gamma-ray Coordinates Network and Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor. Using a variable coincidence time window of ±500 s plus the duration of each GRB, no statistically significant excess above the background is observed. We place the world’s most stringent 90% confidence level upper limit on the electron antineutrino fluence below 17.5 MeV. Assuming a Fermi–Dirac neutrino energy spectrum from the GRB source, we use the available redshift data to constrain the electron antineutrino luminosity and effective temperature.

Grain size distributions of 311 sediment samples from Sites U1450 and U1451 of International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 354 were determined using laser diffraction. Most of the samples were from turbidites, but some hemipelagic beds were also examined. The mean grain size values show that silt-sized particles are the dominant textural class, whereas the grain size values range from clay to coarse-grained sand. An overall upward change in mean grain size value reveals a slight coarsening-upward trend. However, other parameters such as standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis show no systematic relationship with depth in the holes. The analyzed samples cover the age range from recent to early Miocene. Shepard textural classification plots show the sediments are mostly sandy silts, silty sands, and clayey silts with a few silts and sands also present. Frequency curve plots of samples from individual turbidite beds show inversely graded beds are most common at Site U1450, whereas thicker massive beds are dominant at Site U1451.

We report on a search for electron antineutrinos (${\overline{\nu }}_e$) from astrophysical sources in the neutrino energy range 8.3–30.8 MeV with the KamLAND detector. In an exposure of 6.72 kton-year of the liquid scintillator, we observe 18 candidate events via the inverse beta decay reaction. Although there is a large background uncertainty from neutral current atmospheric neutrino interactions, we find no significant excess over background model predictions. Assuming several supernova relic neutrino spectra, we give upper flux limits of 60–110 cm⁻²s⁻¹(90% confidence level, CL) in the analysis range and present a model-independent flux. We also set limits on the annihilation rates for light dark matter pairs to neutrino pairs. These data improve on the upper probability limit of⁸B solar neutrinos converting into${\overline{\nu }}_e$,$P_{{\nu }_e\to {\overline{\nu }}_e}<3.5\times {10}^{-5}$(90% CL) assuming an undistorted${\overline{\nu }}_e$shape. This corresponds to a solar${\overline{\nu }}_e$flux of 60 cm⁻²s⁻¹(90% CL) in the analysis energy range.

We report the result of a search for neutrinos in coincidence with solar flares from the GOES flare database. The search was performed on a 10.8 kton-year exposure of KamLAND collected from 2002 to 2019. This large exposure allows us to explore previously unconstrained parameter space for solar flare neutrinos. We found no statistical excess of neutrinos and established 90% confidence level upper limits of 8.4 × 10⁷cm⁻²(3.0 × 10⁹cm⁻²) on the electron antineutrino (electron neutrino) fluence at 20 MeV normalized to the X12 flare, assuming that the neutrino fluence is proportional to the X-ray intensity.