A1 Journal article (refereed)
High-precision measurement of a low Q value for allowed β−-decay of 131I related to neutrino mass determination (2022)

Eronen, T., Ge, Z., de Roubin, A., Ramalho, M., Kostensalo, J., Kotila, J., Beliushkina, O., Delafosse, C., Geldhof, S., Gins, W., Hukkanen, M., Jokinen, A., Kankainen, A., Moore, I.D., Nesterenko, D.A., Stryjczyk, M., & Suhonen, J. (2022). High-precision measurement of a low Q value for allowed β−-decay of 131I related to neutrino mass determination. Physics Letters B, 830, Article 137135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2022.137135

JYU authors or editors

Eronen, Tommi
Ge, Zhuang
De Oliveira Ramalho, Marlom
Kotila, Jenni
Beliuskina, Olga
Delafosse, Clement
Geldhof, Sarina
Gins, Wouter
Hukkanen, Marjut
Jokinen, Ari
Kankainen, Anu
Moore, Iain
Nesterenko, Dmitrii
Stryjczyk, Marek
Suhonen, Jouni

Publication details

All authors or editors: Eronen, T.; Ge, Z.; de Roubin, A.; Ramalho, M.; Kostensalo, J.; Kotila, J.; Beliushkina, O.; Delafosse, C.; Geldhof, S.; Gins, W.; et al.

Journal or series: Physics Letters B

ISSN: 0370-2693

eISSN: 1873-2445

Publication year: 2022

Volume: 830

Article number: 137135

Publisher: Elsevier

Publication country: Netherlands

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2022.137135

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Open Access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/80992

Abstract

The ground-state-to-ground-state β−-decay 131I (7/2+) → 131Xe (3/2+) Q value was determined with high precision utilizing the double Penning trap mass spectrometer JYFLTRAP at the IGISOL facility. The Q value of this β−-decay was found to be Q = 972.25(19) keV through a cyclotron frequency ratio measurement with a relative precision of 1.6 × 10−9. This was realized using the phase-imaging ion-cyclotron-resonance technique. The new Q value is more than 3 times more precise and 2.3σ higher (1.45 keV) than the value extracted from the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2020. Our measurement confirms that the β−-decay to the 9/2+ excited state at 971.22(13) keV in 131Xe is energetically allowed with a Q value of 1.03(23) keV while the decay to the 7/2+ state at 973.11(14) keV was found to be energetically
forbidden. Nuclear shell-model calculations with established two-body interactions, alongside an accurate phase-space factor and a statistical analysis of the log f t values of known allowed β decays, were used to estimate the partial half-life for the low-Q -value transition to the 9/2+ state. The half-life was found to be (1.97+2.24−0.89) ×107 years, which makes this candidate feasible for neutrino mass searches.

Keywords: neutrinos; nuclear physics

Free keywords: Penning trap; Low Q value; β− decay; Neutrino mass

Fields of science: