The lepton sector of the Standard Model is a very important and interesting field to search for new physics beyond the standard model. As we know that quarks and neutrinos are mixing it is an open question why the charged leptons are now. This stimulates the search for charge lepton violation (CLFV). In addition, neutrino-less double beta decay would violate total lepton number by 2 and prove...
The axial-type of weak couplings seem to be renormalized in medium-heavy and heavy nuclei as suggested by analyses of nuclear beta and double beta decays, nuclear muon capture, charge-exchange reactions and low-energy neutrino-nucleus scattering [1]. Also some calculations suggest that also the vector-type of couplings could attain effective values in nuclei [2,3]. The possible variation of...
Neutrinos play an important role for the supernova dynamics and the
associated nucleosynthesis. During collapse, electron neutrinos, produced
by electron capture on nuclei, dominate, while all neutrino families are
being produced during the cooling phase of the protoneutron star.
Neutrinos are crucial for the explosive nucleosynthesis. At first, by
interaction with free nucleons...
The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) that has been able to reach the one-ton scale. The detector, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO$_{2}$ crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. The construction of...
The SuperNEMO Experiment is designed to search for neutrinoless double beta decays of the Se-82 isotope. The detector employs the multi-observable tracking-and-calorimetry technique pioneered by the NEMO-3 Experiment. Electrons originating from double beta decays of an isotope in thin isotopic foils are tracked in wire tracking chambers and their energy is measured by large scintillator...
The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay represents one of the most exciting
opportunities to explore physics beyond the Standard Model. The knowledge that
neutrinos are massive particles, yet, with masses that are many orders of magnitude
smaller than those of charged fermions, provides encouragement to further push
the sensitivity of these experiments.
nEXO is a 5-tonne...
The MAJORANA collaboration is searching for neutrinoless double-beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay in $^{76}$Ge using modular arrays of enriched, high-purity Ge detectors. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR consists of an array of 44 kg of high-purity Ge detectors with a p-type point contact geometry currently operating in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The ultra-low...
The Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB energy-asymmetric $e^+ e^-$ collider is a substantial upgrade of the B factory facility at the Japanese KEK laboratory. The design luminosity of the machine is $8\times 10^{35}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$ and the Belle II experiment aims to record 50 ab$^{-1}$ of data, a factor of 50 more than its predecessor. Main operation of SuperKEKB has started in March...
EDELWEISS is a direct dark matter search experiment aiming at the detection of WIMPS and other candidates as the composition of the galactic dark matter halo. The EDELWEISS detection method is based on arrays of germanium mono-crystals operated at temperatures around or below 20 mK. Energy deposited in the crystals by particle interactions are read out simultaneously by thermal sensors, which...
The Direct search Experiment for Light Dark Matter (DELight) aims to develop a novel detector technology for the search for light dark matter based on the properties of the superfluid phase of the inert gas 4He. This detector uses the purest material imaginable, provides multiple independent signals for background suppression, has the potential to exploit directionality for event...
Theoretical description of half-lives and electron spectra for higher order forbidden non-unique $\beta$ decays
Anil Kumar and Praveen C. Srivastava
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee,
Roorkee 247 667, India
In this work we have calculated log$ft$ and half-lives values of the higher order forbidden $\beta$-decays for selected nuclei [for e.g....
The Recoil Directionality project (ReD) within the DarkSide Collaboration aims to characterize the light and charge response of a liquid argon (LAr) dual-phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to neutron-induced nuclear recoils. The main goal of the project is to probe for the possible directional dependence suggested by the SCENE experiment. Furthermore, ReD will have the possibility to study...
The impact of different microphysics inputs on the dynamics of core collapse
during infall and early post-bounce is studied performing spherically symmetric simulations in general relativity using a multigroup scheme for neutrino transport and full nuclear distributions in extended nuclear statistical equilibrium models.
We show that the individual EC rates are the most important source of...
HALO-1kT is a lead-based supernova neutrino detector proposed for the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). By utilizing lead from the decommissioning of the OPERA detector at LNGS, HALO-1kT will improve of the sensitivity of the Helium and Lead Observatory (HALO), that has been running in SNOLAB in Canada for the past 7 years, by a factor of ~25. The lead-based neutrino detection...
The detection of the neutrino and subsequently the solar neutrino had stood for over 25 years as a major challenge for nuclear physicists. The presentation is a narrative of the ground-breaking experiment of the joint South African and American teams of JPF Sellschop and F. Reines for the search of cosmic ray neutrino in the early sixties. The Case Western-Wits team operated a gigantic for...
Since the discovery of neutrino oscillation we know that neutrinos have non-zero masses, but we still do not know the absolute neutrino mass scale, which is as important for cosmology as for particle physics. The direct search for a non-zero neutrino mass from endpoint spectra of weak decays is complementary to the search for neutrinoless double beta-decay and analyses of cosmological...
Rapidly developing neutrino physics has found in Penning-trap mass spectrometry a staunch ally in investigating and contributing to a variety of fundamental problems. The most familiar are the absolute neutrino mass and the possible existence of resonant neutrinoless double-electron capture / double-beta dacay and of keV-sterile neutrinos. This review provides an overview on the latest...
The goal of the Electron Capture in $^{163}$Ho (ECHo) experiment is the determination of the electron neutrino mass by the analysis of the electron capture spectrum of $^{163}$Ho. The detector technology is based on metallic magnetic calorimeters operated at a temperature of about 10 mK in a reduced background environment. For the first phase of the experiment, ECHo-1k, the detector production...
I will survey the progress towards the SKA radio telescope array, including the successful building and operation of South Africa's MeerKAT array. Then I will focus on how these instruments can deliver new measurements and insights about the Dark Energy that is driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe.
What is the Dark Matter which makes 85% of the matter in the Universe? We have been asking this question for many decades and used a variety of experimental approaches to address it, with detectors on Earth and in space. Yet, the nature of Dark Matter remains a mystery. An answer to this fundamental question will likely come from ongoing and future searches with accelerators, indirect...
Abstract: The new results obtained by the first 6 independent annual cycles of DAMA/LIBRA–phase2 experiment deep underground at Gran Sasso are presented; they correspond to a total exposure of 1.13 ton × yr. The improved experimental configuration with respect to the phase1 allowed a lower energy threshold. The DAMA/LIBRA–phase2 data confirm the evidence of a signal that meets all the...
The COSINE experiment searches for interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) using an array of NaI(Tl) crystal detectors in the 700-m-deep Yangyang underground laboratory, Korea. The main goal is to check the annual modulation signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA with the same target material. The first phase of the experiment, COSINE-100 with 106 kg of NaI(Tl) crystals, has been...
Neutrinos produced in the Sun can be used as a probe of neutrino physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). In this study, two BSM processes are considered, namely, non-standard neutrino-electron interactions, and electromagnetic neutrino interaction caused by an anomalous magnetic moment. These processes may occur during both neutrino propagation through the solar matter and detection, causing...
The DARWIN observatory is a proposed next-generation experiment whose primary goal is to search for particle dark matter. It will operate 50 tonnes of natural xenon in a dual-phase time projection chamber under ultra-low background conditions. These two characteristics make DARWIN sensitive to other rare interactions, like the neutrinoless double beta decay of the isotope Xe136. Without...
Nuclear astrophysics plays an important role in understanding open issues of neutrino physics. As an example, the two key reactions of the solar p-p chain $^3He(^3He,2p)^4He$ and $^3He(^4He,\gamma)^7Be$ were studied at low energy with LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics), providing an accurate experimental footing for the Standard Solar Model and consequently to study the...
Neutrinoless double-beta decay is a hypothetical rare nuclear transition (T^1/2>1026 y). Its observation would provide an important insight about the nature of neutrinos (Dirac or Majorana particle) demonstrating that the lepton number is not conserved. This decay can be investigated with bolometers embedding the double beta decay isotope, the possibility to investigate this rare process is...
Solar neutrino spectrum measurement plays a crucial role for solar metallicity determination. 127I(nu,e)127Xe reaction is sensitive to CNO and boron components of the solar neutrino spectrum due to the relatively high threshold (662 KeV).
For neutrinos with energies upper S_n = 7.246 MeV 127I(nu,e) capture produces 126Xe + n. The concentration ratio of 127Xe and 126Xe could clarify...
Pair-transfer reactions such as (p,t) and (3He,n) have been used to probe the pairing in nuclei. The nature of pairing in neutrinoless double-beta decay candidates can strongly impact the predicted nuclear matrix elements linking the ground states of the parent and daughter nuclei in neutrinoless double-beta decay candidates, with various different theoretical approaches such as the...
Over the past 15 years, in the consortium EARTH (Earth AntineutRino TomograpHy), low energy experiments have been carried out with the detection of antineutrinos as a theme. The ultimate goal was to learn more about the role of nuclear decay in the interior of the Earth [1-3]. This required developing direction sensitive antineutrino detection to detect geoneutrinos. Here searching for...
Rare weak beta decays can be potentially used in searches for the neutrino mass. These are, e.g., decays between nuclear ground states and excited states in daughter nuclei that have very small (< 1 keV) decay energy ($Q$-value). The beta decay of $^{115}$In $9/2^+$ ground state to $3/2^+$ state in $^{115}$Sn currently has the smallest measured $Q$-value (0.155(24) keV [1,2]) of any beta...
Since 2010, the GERDA project has been operated at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), searching for the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) of Ge-76 to Se-76. GERDA is nowadays completing its mission, having attained 100 kgy exposure and, as first experiment, surpassed the goal sensitivity of 10^26 yr on the half-life of the searched process. Since its beginning in 2010 GERDA has...
NEON is a proposed experiment to detect coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CENNS) with high light yield NaI(Tl) detectors and a reactor as antinuetrino source. Due to extremely low energy signal predicted from the CENNS process, one needs to develop extremely low threshold detectors. We have optimized size of the crystals and developed new optical coupling design for high light...
Neutrino-nucleus interactions can produce excited nuclear states that can de-excite by emitting particles, including neutrons. Neutrino-induced neutrons (NINs) produced in common gamma shielding material, such as lead or iron, can pose a background for neutrino and dark matter experiments. Additionally, NIN production in lead is the primary mechanism for the Helium and Lead Observatory (HALO)...
The big-bang universe, supernovae (SNe), collapsars and binary neutron-star mergers (NSMs) are the viable celestial sources of “multi-messengers”. These messengers are neutrinos for weak force, gravitational waves for gravity, photons for electromagnetism, and atomic nuclei for strong nuclear force [1]. Their detection takes the keys to solve still unanswered questions such as mass hierarchy...
It has been almost a decade since the reactor antineutrino anomaly entered the stage, where the number of experimentally detected antineutrinos emerging from a nuclear power reactor interior was signi?cantly less than theoretically predicted from nuclear ? decay. This has, in turn, motivated the search for an eV-scale sterile neutrino in several very short baseline experiments, none of which...
Coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CEvNS) was first observed 2018 with neutrinos from pion decay at rest. CONUS aims at detecting CEvNS with low energy anti-neutrinos. It uses novel Germanium detector technology and a virtual depth shield for operation at shallow depth only 17 meters away from the core of a multi GW power reactor. The talk will cover the status of CONUS, latest...
CEvNS process has been predicted in 1974 right after discovery of the neutral current of the week interactions. It took more than 40 years to confirm this prediction experimentally. In 2017 COHERENT collaboration reported of the first observation of CEvNS using 14 kg CsI detector and SNS neutrino source at the ORNL. In my talk I will review first observation of CEvNS and present experimental...
: A Quark Condensate See-Saw (QCSS) mechanism of generation of Majorana neutrino mass due to spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry accompanied with the formation of a quark condensate is presented. Consequencies of this scenario of neutrino mass generation for the neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$-decay), tritium beta decay and cosmological measurements are drawn. The...
The neutrinoless double beta decay is of special importance in determining the fundamental properties of neutrinos. The nuclear matrix element of this decay must be evaluated in a sufficient accuracy, and the shell-model calculation can make contributions to this end. This is because the shell-model calculations incorporate basically all correlations into the wave functions of the initial and...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is one of the most ambitious particle physics experiments of the next generation. DUNE consists of two detectors: the Near Detector (ND) - just downstream of the neutrino beam at FERMILAB (IL - USA), and the Far Detector (FD) - 1300 km away and 1500 m deep in the underground SURF laboratory (SD - USA). The ND is a multi-technology apparatus...
Current status of the T2K long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment is presented.
Future upgrades and prospects in coming ten years are also reported.
The current status of the mass-mixing parameters in the three-neutrino framework will be reviewed. The increasing connections between neutrino and nuclear physics will be highlighted. A case will be made for establishing an interdisciplinary field, that might be named as "electroweak nuclear physics".
In this talk I shall present results from recent high-precision half-life and branching ratio measurements for 19Ne beta decay and the detailed spectroscopic analyses of states in 136Ba and 136Cs via two-nucleon transfer reactions. I will briefly discuss the connection between these experiments in the context of Standard Model tests, highlighting the importance of reconciling the experimental...
Researches on neutrinoless double beta decay have crucial implications on particle physics, cosmology and fundamental physics. It is likely the most promising process to access the absolute neutrino mass scale. To determine quantitative information from the possible measurement of the 0νββ decay half-lives, the knowledge of the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in such transitions is...
The status and prospects of heavy ion charge exchange reactions are discussed. Their important role for nuclear reaction, nuclear structure, and beta-decay investigations is emphasized. Dealing with peripheral reactions, direct reaction theory gives at hand the proper methods for single (SCE) and double charge exchange (DCE) ion–ion scattering. The microscopic descriptions of charge exchange...
The AMoRE (Advanced Mo-based Rare process Experiment) intends to find an evidence for neutrinoless double beta decay of Mo-100 by using a cryogenic technique with molybdate based crystal scintillators. The crystals, which are cooled down to 10~20 mK temperatures, are equipped with MMC-type phonon and photon sensors to detect both thermal and scintillation signals produced by a particle...
In February 1987 neutrinos from the SN1987 traveled a distance of about 50 kpc from the Large Magellanic Cloud and were detected on Earth by two of the largest neutrino telescopes of that time, Kamiokande-II and IMB, thus confirming the vast amount of energy (~10^53 ergs) predicted to be emitted in neutrinos and setting allowed intervals for the emission parameters like the neutrinosphere...
MINOS and MINOS+ experiments collected unprecedented amount of data using two long baseline detectors that operated on axis of the NuMI neutrino beam at Fermilab. This has allowed to conduct some of the best measurements of neutrino oscillations that provide stringent constraints on neutrino mixing and transitions involving sterile neutrinos. We will present the latest results from these studies.
Neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) are considered neutral particles. However, recent experiments showed that the neutrino has infinitesimal electric charge leads to non-zero magnetic moment (μ) with precise constraints on the value, this electromagnetic interaction contribution enhances neutrino properties i.e. Oscillation, Scattering, and Spin. This work discusses the possible neutrino...
The ICARUS collaboration employed the 760-ton T600 detector in a successful three-year physics run at the underground LNGS laboratories studying neutrino oscillations with the CNGS neutrino beam from CERN, and searching for atmospheric neutrino interactions. ICARUS performed a sensitive search for LSND-like anomalous $\nu_e$ appearance in the CNGS beam, which contributed to the constraints on...
The NOvA experiment has two segmented liquid scintillation detectors,
which are sensitive to the neutrino signal from a core-collapse
supernova in our galaxy. Each of these detectors performs an online
reconstruction and analysis of the neutrino interaction candidates,
comparing their time distribution to that of the signals expected from a
core-collapse supernova. The statistical...
The mixing of three neutrino flavours is parameterised by the unitary
PMNS matrix. If there are more than three neutrino flavours, effective $3\times 3$ neutrino mixing
matrix will be non-unitary. In this paper, we have analysed the
latest T2K and NO$\nu$A data with the hypothesis of non-unitary mixing matrix.
Present results from NO$\nu$A and T2K collaboration have tension between them...
KM3NeT is the next-generation neutrino Cherenkov telescope currently under construction in the Mediterranean Sea. Its low energy configuration ORCA (Oscillations Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) is optimised for the detection of atmospheric neutrinos with energies above ∼1 GeV. The main research target of the ORCA detector is the measurement of the neutrino mass ordering (NMO) and...
In this talk, I will present the status of solar models, review the main limitations imposed by uncertain input physics in the models and by external constraints (aka solar abudances), and discuss the current constraints imposed from helioseismic and solar neutrino measurements. Also, I will discuss the implications that our current limitations in modeling the Sun have for stellar physics....
A future neutrino experiment based in Japan, Hyper-Kamiokande (HK) consists of a high-intensity neutrino beam from the J-PARC accelerator targeting a Near Detector suite, an Intermediate Water Cerenkov detector and an underground world-largest Water Cerenkov Far Detector, providing 0.19 Mt (fiducial mass) of ultra-pure water sensed by newly developed photo-sensors with 40%-equivalent...
The Borexino liquid scintillator neutrino observatory is devoted to perform high-precision neutrino observations: the study of solar neutrinos is the primary goal of the experiment. The exceptional radiopurity together with the good energy resolution (5% at 1 MeV) put Borexino in the unique situation of being able to validate the MSW-LMA oscillation paradigm across the full solar energy range....
The search for neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay, a process only allowed if the neutrino were a Majorana particle, recently gained much attention with numerous experiments being dedicated to its observation. It would demonstrate lepto-genesis in the universe and allow the determination of the neutrino mass from its decay rate. However, to quantitatively extract the neutrino mass or...
In the last decade, two unsolved anomalies have appeared from the study of reactor neutrinos: one related to the neutrino spectral shape, and another to the absolute neutrino flux. The second one, known as the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly, presents a deficit in the observed flux compared to the expected one that could point to the existence of a light sterile neutrino in the eV range...
Neutrino-matter interaction has great importance for neutrino physics and astrophysics. Neutrino capture cross-section depends on the structure of the target nucleus strength function. 71Ga(v,e)71Ge process could be analysed using the charge-exchange strength functions of 71Ga(p,n)71Ge and 71Ga(3He,t)71Ge reactions. Nuclear phenomenology of charge-exchange reactions describes not only discrete...
The reactor antineutrino and gallium anomalies have been long unexplained. Possible explanations for both of these anomalies include new physics, such as the existence of one or more eV-scale sterile neutrino [Ga15]. However, the previous theoretical calculations, which do not replicate the experimental results, rely on many simplifying approximations [Ba97,Ha19].
In the...
The work presents calculations of the neutrino-nuclear reaction cross-sections using the
example of the nucleus 𝐺𝑒'( (𝐺𝑒'( 𝜈*, 𝑒 𝐴𝑠'( ). In the structure of the nucleus, not only
discrete, but also continuous states formed due to the collective interaction of nucleons were
distinguished. In particular, the contribution of the Giant Gamow-Teller resonance and so-called
pygmy resonances in...
Neutrino-nucleus reactions on $^{13}$C and $^{16}$O at supernova (SN) energies are investigated by shell-model calculations with the use of new Hamiltonian, which can describe spin responses of nuclei quite well. Cabon-based scintillators and water-Cerenkov scintillators relevent to SN observation and experiments at the spallation neutron sources are now available. Cross sections for various...
The success of experiments such as DUNE require the determination of neutrino flux and cross-section with nuclear targets with unprecedented accuracy. A crucial input in the calculations of these is the axial form factor. Starting from the standard model that defines the interaction of the axial current with quarks, one needs to include both QCD corrections that bind quarks into nucleons and...
Quenching of the Gamow-Teller strength in in weak processes is a well-established phenomenon. I will briefly review our knowledge of quenching of the isospin-analog spin-M1 resonance. The interest is driven by recent developments of ab initio calculations based on interactions derived from χEFT, which allow a unified description of electromagnetic and weak processes populating isospin-analog...
Neutrinoless double-beta decay (0nbb) is notoriously difficult to observe. Moreover, expected decay rates depend on the value of the nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) which are poorly known. In order to obtain insights on the NMEs, and therefore on expected decay rates, one can study other processes connected to 0nbb decay. In this talk I confront predictions and measurements of the half-life and...
To describe the double beta decay processes reliably one needs a possibility to test the involved virtual transitions against experimental data. In this work we manifest how to utilise
the nuclear and lepton ($\mu$) charge-excange reaction data in the study of $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay and astro-neutrinos. In my contribution I will cover the theoretical aspects of ordinary muon capture (OMC) as...
S. Stoica,
International Centre for Advanced Training and Research in Physics and
Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering,
P.O. Box MG12, 077125 Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
Until the recent past not to much importance was given to the kinematic factors related to the double-beta decay, i.e. the phase space factors, electronic spectra and angular correlations...
We analysed the angular distribution of two-proton pickup transfer for the 40Ca(18O,20Ne)38Ar reaction at 270 MeV incident energy. The coupled reaction channel (CRC) and coupled channel Born approximations (CCBA) methods were considered in the theoretical calculations to obtain the two-proton transfer angular distributions, in which the results have reproduced very well the experimental data....
The NUMEN Experiment, at INFN-LNS (Catania), aims to get information on the Nuclear Matrix Elements of the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay, by measuring Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions cross-sections [1]. The energy of the reaction products must be measured with high resolution. To fulfil this requirement, the target must be thin to minimize dispersion and straggling effects on the...
Nowadays astronomical observations have provided solid proof for the existence of dark matter (DM), yet a direct measurement is lacking.
COSINUS (Cryogenic Observatory for SIgnatures seen in Next-generation Underground Searches) has the aim of detecting DM via elastic scattering off the nuclei of a target NaI crystal which is the core of the detector. The NaI crystal is kept at ~10 mK and it...
What is the Dark Matter which makes 85% of the matter in the Universe? We have been asking this question for many decades and used a variety of experimental approaches to address it, with detectors on Earth and in space. Yet, the nature of Dark Matter remains a mystery. An answer to this fundamental question will likely come from ongoing and future searches with accelerators, indirect...
Neutrino nuclear responses associated with astro-neutrinos and double beta decays are crucial to extract neutrino properties of astro-particle physics interests. The present report
reviews briefly recent experimental studies and perspectives for neutrino nuclear responses and isotopes production using negative muons. Gamma rays following ordinary muon capture reactions are used for studies of...
Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a next generation underground reactor antineutrino experiment, is proposed to determine the
neutrino mass hierarchy and precisely measure neutrino oscillation parameters using a massive liquid scintillator detector underground. The experimental
hall, spanning more than 50 meters, is under a granite mountain of over 700 m overburden. The...
By comparing rates of neutrinoless double positron emission and electron capture with positron emission one could distinguish mechanism (due to light neutrino exchange or right-handed currents admixture in the weak interaction) of the neutrinoless double beta “minus” decay when observed. However, even the allowed two-neutrino mode of electron capture with positron emission is not observed yet....
Understanding the origin of lepton number violation is one of the major questions in physics today. Neutrinoless double beta decay provides a way in which this violation can be tested. Furthertmore, neutrinoless double beta decay can significantly help to shed light on the issue of nonzero neutrino mass, as the observation of this lepton-number-violating process would imply that...
There have been two intriguing and unresolved puzzles surrounding recent measurements of reactor antineutrino spectrum in comparison with various calculated spectra, namely a deficient in the total number of measured antineutrinos and an excess of antineutrinos for energies from 5-7 MeV. While these observations could point to new physics, the beta-decay properties of fission fragments used...
The Inverse Beta Decay antineutrino spectrum generated by nuclear reactors is calculated using the summation methods with the highest fidelity nuclear databases to date to understand deviations from the smooth Huber-Mueller model due to the decay of individual fission products. Several numerical methods were explored, and concluded that plotting the ratio of two adjacent spectra points can...
The GEANT4 [1] Hadrontherapy model [2] was used to predict the outcome of several reactions of interest to the NUMEN project (LNS/INFN, Catania, Italy). In this project, Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction matrix elements of interest to neutrino double-beta decay physics are to be experimentally assessed. In the last phase of the NUMEN project, very large intensity beams from the CS...
The $^{150}$Nd nuclide is one of the most promising ones to search for double beta decay among the 35 naturally occurring double beta isotopes because of the high energy release: 3371.38(20) keV, and of the comparatively high isotopic abundance: 5.638(28)%. The 2$\beta$ transition to the 740.5 keV $0_1^+$ excited level of $^{150}$Sm was observed in few experiments with half-lives in a wide...
The search for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) is presently a major issue. Despite its spectacular success, it is recognized that the SM could be incomplete and could eventually be incorporated into a more fundamental framework. As an example the excess of matter over antimatter in the Universe indicates the presence of baryon-number-violating interactions and most likely of new sources...
Total absorption spectroscopy is presently the most reliable technique that provides beta
decay transition probabilities free from the Pandemonium systematic error [1-3]. In this
contribution we will present recent results from the work performed by our
collaboration employing this technique, which is relevant for reactor applications and in
particular for the prediction of the...
