New Results for Double-Beta Decay of Mo-100 to Excited Final States of Ru-100 Using the TUNL-ITEP Apparatus

TL;DR

This paper reports improved measurements of the half-life of Mo-100's two-neutrino double-beta decay to excited states, providing data to test nuclear models and explore exotic neutrino properties.

Contribution

It presents the most precise measurement to date of the half-life for Mo-100 decay to the first excited 0+ state, with extended measurement time and improved detection efficiency.

Findings

Half-life for Mo-100 decay to excited 0+ state: 5.5 x 10^20 years

Enhanced detection efficiency with a factor of 2.4 accuracy improvement

New limits set for transitions to higher excited states in Ru-100

Abstract

The coincidence detection efficiency of the TUNL--ITEP apparatus designed for measuring half-life times of two-neutrino double-beta decay transitions to excited final states in daughter nuclei has been measured with a factor of 2.4 improved accuracy. In addition, the previous measuring time of 455 days for the study of the Mo-100 two-neutrino double-beta decay to the first excited 0+ state in Ru-100 has been increased by 450 days, and a new result (combined with the previous measurement obtained with the same apparatus) for this transition is presented: T_(1/2) = [5.5 (+1.2/-0.8) (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)] x 10^20 y. Measured two-neutrino double-beta decay half-life times to excited states can be used to test the reliability of nuclear matrix element calculations needed for determining the effective neutrino mass from zero-neutrino double-beta decay data. We also present new limits for transitions to higher excited states in Ru-100 which, if improved, may be of interest for more exotic conjectures, like a bosonic component to neutrino statistics.