“Japan’s Super K: The Unprecedented Detector Device for Neutrinos with 50,000 Tons of Pure Water Stored Under a Mountain”

Jakarta – Mount Ikeno in Japan apparently contains tens of thousands of tons of pure water. This structure is located very far below the mountain.

Quoted from detikInet, the search for subatomic particles, especially neutrinos, is difficult because they can penetrate objects without anything blocking them. However, learning more about them is important because these particles help to understand the mysteries of the universe.

Neutrinos pass us by and everything around all the time. In every square centimeter, it is estimated that about 65 billion of them pass per second. They are undetectable because they are so small and carry no electric charge. As a result, they are immune to electromagnetic forces which allow us to detect and study them like other particles.

So, in order to capture and understand the nature of neutrinos, scientists in Japan developed an unprecedented detector device called Super Kamiokande or Super K with super pure water. Its purpose is to detect neutrinos underground.

This structure is located 1 kilometer below Mount Ikeno in Gifu, Japan and was built in 1983. There are 50 thousand tons of super-pure water in a kind of cylindrical stainless steel tank 41.4 meters high and 39.3 meters in diameter.

As quoted from Big Think, the tank is gold plated so it looks stunning. There are also photomultiplier tubes (PMT) which glow when neutrinos are detected.

In order for the light sensor to pick up neutrinos, the researchers determined that the water had to be very pure. So, the water is constantly processed repeatedly, to clean it of bacteria and particles with ultraviolet light.

Currently, another structure is being prepared by Japanese researchers that is even bigger, which is 20 times more massive than Super K. Called Hyper Kamiokande or Hyper K, the new facility is likely to start operating in 2026.

This article has been published on detikInet with the title Japan Stores 50,000 Tons of Pure Water Under the Mountain, Why?

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