2007/10/03 by J. P. Schiffer, S. J. Freeman, J. A. Clark +16 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Neutrino Physics Research #Nuclear physics research studies #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #nucl-ex
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.112501
published as Phys.Rev.Lett.100:112501,2008 · 4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2007/10/03 · openalex publication_date 2008/03/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The possibility of observing neutrinoless double beta decay offers the opportunity of determining the effective neutrino mass if the nuclear matrix element were known. Theoretical calculations are uncertain, and measurements of the occupations of valence orbits by nucleons active in the decay can be important. The occupation of valence neutron orbits in the ground states of 76Ge (a candidate for such decay) and 76Se (the daughter nucleus) were determined by precisely measuring cross sections for both neutron-adding and removing transfer reactions. Our results indicate that the Fermi surface is much more diffuse than in theoretical calculations. We find that the populations of at least three orbits change significantly between these two ground states while in the calculations, the changes are confined primarily to one orbit.