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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Nuclear Physics​
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1455778
This article is part of the Research Topic Beta Decay: Current Theoretical and Experimental Challenges View all 4 articles

Spectral shapes of second-forbidden single-transition nonunique β decays assessed using the nuclear shell model

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
  • 2 International Center for Advanced Training and Research in Physics (CIFRA), Magurele, Romania
  • 3 Horia Hulubei National Institute for Research and Development in Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH), Măgurele, Bucharest, Romania

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Experimental and theoretical studies of β electrons (electrons emitted in β --decay transitions) and their β-electron spectra have recently experienced a rapid expansion. These β spectral shapes have been used to study total β spectra of fission-product nuclei in the quest for explanation of the reactor-flux anomalies, and individual β transitions in search for β spectral shapes sensitive to the effective value of the weak axial coupling g A . In the former case the TAGS (total absorption gamma-ray spectroscopy) can be efficiently used to measure the total β spectral shapes and in the latter case dedicated measurements of the involved forbidden nonunique β transitions have been deployed. The fourth-forbidden nonunique decay transitions 113 Cd(1/2 + g.s. ) → 113 In(9/2 + g.s. ) and 115 In(9/2 + g.s. ) → 115 Sn(1/2 + g.s.) represent theoretically and experimentally much-studied cases where the total β spectra consist of these single transitions.In these particular cases the TAGS method could be used to assess the effective value of g A . In the present work we have identified five more interesting cases where a total β spectrum consists of a single transition. These spectra correspond to second-forbidden nonunique transitions and are g A and/or sNME dependent, where sNME denotes the so-called small relativistic vector nuclear matrix element. These studies have been performed using the nuclear shell model with well established effective Hamiltonians. With this we target to β transitions that would potentially be of high interest for the TAGS and present and future dedicated β-spectrum experiments.

    Keywords: Beta decay, nuclear matrix elements, nuclear structure, Nuclear shell model, weak axial coupling, small relativistic matrix element, electron spectral shapes

    Received: 27 Jun 2024; Accepted: 23 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Suhonen, Ramalho, Stoica and Neacsu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jouni T. Suhonen, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

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