2015/10/19 by A. De Rújula, De Rújula, A., M. Lusignoli +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Atomic and Molecular Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Nuclear physics research studies #Radioactive Decay and Measurement Techniques #hep-ph #nucl-th #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1510.05462
6 pages, 5 figures. Section IV and Fig.3 added. Minor text modifications
openalex publication_date 2015/10/19 · arxiv created 2015/11/08 · arxiv updated 2015/11/10 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is in principle possible to measure directly the electron neutrino mass (or masses and mixing angles) in weak electron-capture decays. The optimal nuclide in this respect is 163Ho. The favoured experimental technique, currently pursued in various experiments (ECHo, HOLMES and NuMECS) is "calorimetric". The calorimetric energy spectrum is a sum over the unstable vacant orbitals, or "holes", left by the electrons weakly captured by the nucleus. We discuss the current progress in this field and analize the preliminary data. Our conclusion is that, as pointed out by Robertson, the contribution of two-hole states is not negligible. But --in strong contradistinction with the tacit conclusion of previous comparisons of theory and observations-- we find a quite satisfactory agreement. A crucial point is that, in the creation of secondary holes, electron shakeoff and not only electron shakeup must be taken into account.