Plutonium-241 as a possible isotope for neutrino mass measurement and capture
- Resource Type
- Working Paper
- Authors
- de Groot, Nicolo
- Source
- Subject
- High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Theory
- Language
Tritium has been the isotope of choice for measurements of the neutrino mass and planned detection of the relic neutrino background. The low mass of $^{3}$H leads to large recoil energy of the nucleus. This has emerged as a limiting factor for both measurements. We investigate $^{241}$Pu as an alternative. The recoil is 80x smaller and it has similar decay energy and lifetime as $^{3}$H. We evaluate for the first time its soft-neutrino capture cross-section and find $(\sigma v)_{\nu} = 1.52 \times 10^{-45}$. This is 40% of the capture cross-section for tritium and makes $^{241}$Pu an interesting alternative for $^{3}$H.
Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure