"We will rebuild the detector. There is no question"
Y. Totsuka, 11/13/01
Dear colleague,
As a director of the Kamioka Observatory, which owns and is responsible to
operate and maintain the Super-Kamiokande detector, it is really sad that I
have to announce the severe accident that occurred on November 12 and damaged
the significant part of the detector.
The cause and how to deal with the loss in future will be discussed by newly
founded committees.
However, even before discussing with my colleagues of the Super-K and K2K
collaborations, I have decided to express my intention on behalf of the staff
of the Kamioka Observatory.
We will rebuild the detector. There is no question. The strategy may be the
following two steps, which will be proposed and discussed among my colleagues.
- Quick restart of the K2K experiment.
(1) We will clear the safety measures which may be suggested
by the committees,
(2) reduce the number density of the photomultiplier tubes by
about a half,
(3) use the existing resources,
(4) resume the K2K experiment as soon as possible;
the goal may be within one year.
-
Preparation for the JHF-Kamioka experiment.
(1) Restore the full Super-Kamiokande detector armed with the state-of-the-art
techniques.
(2) The detector will be ready by the time of the commissioning of
the JHF machine.
To achieve our objective is formidable but we are determined to do so. But we
certainly need your encouragement, advice and help. I should appreciate it very
much if you could support our effort as you have kindly done so before.
Best regards,
Yoji Totsuka
director, Kamioka Observatory
On behalf of the Kamioka Observatory staff
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