28 July 2020 to 6 August 2020
virtual conference
Europe/Prague timezone

Search for New Physics via the $K_L \to \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ decay at the J-PARC KOTO experiment

28 Jul 2020, 17:52
15m
virtual conference

virtual conference

Talk 05. Quark and Lepton Flavour Physics Quark and Lepton Flavour Physics

Speaker

Dr Nobuhiro Shimizu (Osaka University)

Description

The purpose of the KOTO experiment, being conducted at J-PARC (Ibaraki Japan), is to search for New Physics
via the rare decay $K_L\rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ using the high intensity $K_L$ beam provided by
the 30~GeV proton synchrotron.
The $K_L\rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ decay is suppressed in the standard model, and
its observation may reveal hints of new physics.
The signature of $K_L\rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ is two $\gamma$'s from a $\pi^0$ and
no other particles in the detectors surrounding the decay region.

For the data collected between 2016 and 2018, a blind analysis technique was adopted to avoid
human bias in the determination of the selection criteria.
We unblineded the signal region in the summer of 2019, and observed candidate events.
Since then, we have been checking our software and hardware, and possibilities of backgrounds that we might have missed.
In this presentation, we report the progress in the analysis and the obtained feedback from the data taken in 2019 and 2020.

Secondary track (number) 03

Primary author

Dr Nobuhiro Shimizu (Osaka University)

Presentation materials