Corrections to the tritium β decay spectrum arising from radiative and atomic effects and their relationship to neutrino mass experiments

Abstract

The process of inner bremsstrahlung is examined for the β− decay of 3H. These radiative effects are then combined with atomic corrections in a more complete theoretical reference spectrum consisting of both light and heavy neutrino decay in accordance with recently published results of neutrino mass experiments. Due to the unusual nature of the experimental detector, final density of states is modified to provide a decay rate as a function of recorded energy. This reference spectrum is compared with experimental data using the exact method employed in the original analysis. It is found that previously reported low energy Kurie spectrum deviations are still present in the sample data, corresponding to a best fit for neutrino mass mν = 17.2 keV and mixing probability R = 2.5%. The origin of the difference between the conclusions reached here and those of earlier cited works is briefly discussed.