A unified approach to electron and neutrino elastic scattering off nuclei with an application to the study of the axial structure

We show a relationship between elastic electron scattering observables and the elastic neutrino cross section that provides a straightforward determination of the latter from experimental data of the former and relates their uncertainties. An illustration of this procedure is presented using a Hartree-Fock mean field for the nuclear structure of a set of even-even nuclear targets, using the spectra of the neutrinos produced in pion decay at rest. We also analyze the prospects to measure the incoherent axial contribution to the neutrino elastic scattering in odd targets

Nuclear structure calculations for two-neutrino double-beta decay

We study the two-neutrino double-beta decay in 76Ge, 116Cd, 128Te, 130Te, and 150Nd, as well as the two Gamow-Teller branches that connect the double-beta decay partners with the states in the intermediate nuclei. We use a theoretical microscopic approach based on a deformed selfconsistent mean field with Skyrme interactions including pairing and spin-isospin residual forces, which are treated in a proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation. We compare our results for Gamow-Teller strength distributions with experimental information obtained from charge-exchange reactions. We also compare our results for the two-neutrino double-beta decay nuclear matrix elements with those extracted from the measured half-lives. Both single-state and low-lying-state dominance hypotheses are analyzed theoretically and experimentally making use of recent data from charge-exchange reactions and beta decay of the intermediate nuclei.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1502.0588

Coincidence charged-current neutrino-induced deuteron disintegration for 2H216O^2\mathrm{H}_2{^{16}}\mathrm{O}

Semi-inclusive charge-changing neutrino reactions on targets of heavy water are investigated with the goal of determining the relative contributions to the total cross section of deuterium and oxygen in kinematics chosen to emphasize the former. The study is undertaken for conditions where the typical neutrino beam energies are in the few GeV region, and hence relativistic modeling is essential. For this, the previous relativistic approach for the deuteron is employed, together with a spectral function approach for the case of oxygen. Upon optimizing the kinematics of the final-state particles assumed to be detected (typically a muon and a proton) it is shown that the oxygen contribution to the total cross section is suppressed by roughly an order of magnitude compared with the deuterium cross section, thereby confirming that CC$\nu$ studies of heavy water can effectively yield the cross sections for deuterium, with acceptable backgrounds from oxygen. This opens the possibility of using deuterium to determine the incident neutrino flux distribution, to have it serve as a target for which the nuclear structure issues are minimal, and possibly to use deuterium to provide improved knowledge of specific aspects of hadronic structure, such as to explore the momentum transfer dependence of the isovector axial-vector form factor of the nucleon

Warm dark matter sterile neutrinos in electron capture and beta decay spectra

We briefly review the motivation to search for sterile neutrinos in the keV mass scale, as dark matter candidates, and the prospects to find them in beta decay or electron capture spectra, with a global perspective. We describe the fundamentals of the neutrino flavor-mass eigenstate mismatch that opens the possibility of detecting sterile neutrinos in such ordinary nuclear processes. Results are shown and discussed for the effect of heavy neutrino emission in electron capture in Holmium 163 and in two isotopes of Lead, 202 and 205, as well as in the beta decay of Tritium. We study the de-excitation spectrum in the considered cases of electron capture and the charged lepton spectrum in the case of Tritium beta decay. For each of these cases, we define ratios of integrated transition rates over different regions of the spectrum under study, and give new results that may guide and facilitate the analysis of possible future measurements, paying particular attention to forbidden transitions in Lead isotopes.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Theoretical mean field and experimental occupation probabilities in the double beta decay system 76Ge to 76Se

Usual Woods-Saxon single particle levels with BCS pairing are not able to reproduce the experimental occupation probabilities of the proton and neutron levels 1p_{3/2}, 1p_{1/2}, 0f_{5/2}, 0g_{9/2} in the double-beta decay system 76Ge to 76Se. Shifting down the 0g_{9/2} level by hand can explain the data but it is not satisfactory. Here it is shown that a selfconsistent Hartree-Fock+BCS approach with experimental deformations for 76Ge and 76Se may decisively improve the agreement with the recent data on occupation probabilities by Schiffer et al. and Kay et al. Best agreement with available data on 76Ge and 76Se, as well as on neighbor isotopes, is obtained when the spin-orbit strength for neutrons is allowed to be larger than that for protons. The two-neutrino double-beta decay matrix element is also shown to agree with data.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Weak nuclear processes in the quest for elusive particles

10 pags., 6 figs.Nuclear processes involving the weak interaction can be used to extract information on some elusive properties of particles. Remarkably useful to this goal is parity-violating elastic electron scattering off nuclei, which can be used to determine accurately the distribution of neutrons within the nucleus, including information on the neutron skin that can be related to the structure of neutron stars. It can also be used to determine the content of strange quark-antiquark virtual pairs in nucleons and can help in evaluating accurately Standard Model parameters or higher-order radiative corrections. To achieve these goals it is essential keeping under control the theoretical uncertainties that arise in modelling some confounding nuclear effects, such as isospin mixing or Coulomb distortion of electron wave functions. The paradigm of an evasive particle in current physics is dark matter. Sterile neutrinos are hypothetical dark matter candidates that could be produced in nuclear beta decays leaving a signal in the energy spectrum of the emitted charged lepton. They can also be coherently scattered by nuclei through an indirect weak neutral interaction, whose cross section can be written in terms of elastic electron scattering observables. We study the probability of these production and detection mechanisms using experimental and cosmological constraints on the sterile neutrino properties. The coherent scattering cross section off nuclei has also been analyzed for the Standard Model neutrinos, being a notably elusive process that has been recently measured for the first time and that can be used for Standard Model tests or for nuclear structure studies in ways analogous to parity-violating electron scattering