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On the keV sterile neutrino search in electron capture
A joint effort of cryogenic microcalorimetry (CM) and high-precision
Penning-trap mass spectrometry (PT-MS) in investigating atomic orbital electron
capture (EC) can shed light on the possible existence of heavy sterile
neutrinos with masses from 0.5 to 100 keV. Sterile neutrinos are expected to
perturb the shape of the atomic de-excitation spectrum measured by CM after a
capture of the atomic orbital electrons by a nucleus. This effect should be
observable in the ratios of the capture probabilities from different orbits.
The sensitivity of the ratio values to the contribution of sterile neutrinos
strongly depends on how accurately the mass difference between the parent and
the daughter nuclides of EC-transitions can be measured by, e.g., PT-MS. A
comparison of such probability ratios in different isotopes of a certain
chemical element allows one to exclude many systematic uncertainties and thus
could make feasible a determination of the contribution of sterile neutrinos on
a level below 1%. Several electron capture transitions suitable for such
measurements are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 2 table
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