• Super-Kamiokande is a 15-story underground lab in Japan designed to detect neutrinos.
• It uses 50,000 tonnes of ultra-pure water and 11,000 Photo Multiplier Tubes (PMTs) to detect faint bursts of light from neutrinos.
• The detector provides insights into supernovae, neutrino oscillations, and the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe.

Super-Kamiokande is a massive neutrino detector located 1,000 meters beneath Mount Ikeno in Japan. This detector is designed to capture neutrinos, elusive subatomic particles that travel through space and matter virtually unimpeded. By detecting these particles, Super-Kamiokande is capable of providing early warnings about supernovae and helping scientists understand fundamental aspects of the universe, such as the imbalance between matter and antimatter.

• What: Super-Kamiokande detects neutrinos using 50,000 tonnes of ultra-pure water and 11,000 Photo Multiplier Tubes (PMTs). Neutrinos traveling faster than light in water produce Cherenkov radiation, which is detected by the PMTs.
• Who: Key individuals include Dr. Yoshi Uchida (Imperial College London), Dr. Matthew Malek (University of Sheffield), and Dr. Morgan Wascko (Imperial College London). Organizations involved include UC Santa Cruz, Imperial College London, and the University of Sheffield.
• When: The Super-Kamiokande experiment is ongoing. Specific events mentioned include detection of neutrinos from supernovae and the T2K experiment.
• Where: The Super-Kamiokande detector is located 1,000 meters underground beneath Mount Ikeno in Japan.

Super-Kamiokande represents a significant advancement in neutrino detection technology. Its ability to detect neutrinos from supernovae provides early warnings and valuable data for understanding these events. The detector's role in the T2K experiment and its contribution to understanding matter-antimatter asymmetry highlights its importance in modern astrophysics. The extreme purity of the water used is a critical factor in the detector's sensitivity, but also poses challenges due to its aggressive properties.

Matter poses no obstacle to a neutrino. A neutrino could pass through a hundred light-years of steel without even slowing down.

If there’s a supernova, a star that collapses into itself and turns into a black hole… if that happens in our galaxy, something like Super-K is one of the very few objects that can see the neutrinos from it.

Pure water is very, very nasty stuff. It has the features of an acid and an alkaline.

I got up at 3 o’clock in the morning with the itchiest scalp I have ever had in my entire life. It was so itchy I just couldn’t sleep.

Our big bang models predict that matter and anti-matter should have been created in equal parts, but now [most of] the anti-matter has disappeared through one way or another.

Super-Kamiokande continues to be a vital tool for exploring the fundamental properties of the universe. Its ability to detect neutrinos and provide insights into supernovae, neutrino oscillations, and matter-antimatter asymmetry makes it a key experiment in astrophysics. Ongoing research and upgrades to the detector promise to further enhance its capabilities and contribute to new discoveries.