  The atmospheric neutrino background for proton decay to positron and neutral
pion in ring imaging water Cherenkov detectors is studied with an artificial
accelerator neutrino beam for the first time. In total, about 314,000 neutrino
events corresponding to about 10 megaton-years of atmospheric neutrino
interactions were collected by a 1,000 ton water Cherenkov detector (KT). The
KT charged-current single neutral pion production data are well reproduced by
simulation programs of neutrino and secondary hadronic interactions used in the
Super-Kamiokande (SK) proton decay search. The obtained proton to positron and
neutral pion background rate by the KT data for SK from the atmospheric
neutrinos whose energies are below 3 GeV is about two per megaton-year. This
result is also relevant to possible future, megaton-scale water Cherenkov
detectors.
