Moessbauer antineutrinos: some basic considerations

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the feasibility of observing Moessbauer antineutrinos from the 3H-3He system, concluding that solid-state effects and relaxation phenomena severely hinder their detection, with alternative systems like 163Ho-163Dy considered.

Contribution

It provides a detailed assessment of the physical challenges in detecting Moessbauer antineutrinos and discusses potential alternative isotope systems.

Findings

Line broadening exceeds 10^13 due to relaxation phenomena.

Lattice effects drastically reduce phononless transition probability.

Detection of Moessbauer antineutrinos from 3H-3He is likely unfeasible.

Abstract

Basic aspects of phononless resonant capture of monoenergetic electron antineutrinos (Moessbauer antineutrinos) emitted in boundstate beta-decay in the 3H - 3He system are considered. It is shown that stochastic magnetic relaxation phenomena as well as the direct influence of solid-state effects on the energy of the electron antineutrino will cause line broadening by a factor of more than 10^(13). Lattice expansion and contraction after the transformation of the nucleus will drastically reduce the probability for phononless transitions. Thus, the observation of Moessbauer electron antineutrinos of the 3H - 3He system will most probably be unsuccessful. As a possible alternative, the Rare-Earth system 163Ho - 163Dy is briefly discussed.