1211.5659 (David L. Lincoln et al.)

First Direct Double-Beta Decay Q-value Measurement of 82Se in Support of
Understanding the Nature of the Neutrino    [PDF]

David L. Lincoln, Jason D. Holt, Georg Bollen, Maxime Brodeur, Scott Bustabad, Jonathan Engel, Samuel J. Novario, Matthew Redshaw, Ryan Ringle, Stefan Schwarz

In anticipation of results from current and future double-beta decay studies, we report a measurement resulting in a 82Se double-beta decay Q-value of 2997.9(3) keV, an order of magnitude more precise than the currently accepted value. We also present preliminary results of a calculation of the 82Se neutrinoless double-beta decay nuclear matrix element that corrects in part for the small size of the shell model single-particle space. The results of this work are important for designing next generation double-beta decay experiments and for the theoretical interpretations of their observations.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.5659