Initial State Interaction for the 20Ne + 130Te and 18O + 116Sn Systems at 15.3 AMeV from Elastic and Inelastic Scattering Measurements

D Carbone ,N Deshmukh ,D R Mendes ,Salvatore Calabrese ,D Torresi ,L Acosta ,C Agodi ,A Pakou ,A Foti ,O Sgouros ,H Petrascu ,P Finocchiaro ,D Calvo ,F Cappuzzello ,N H Medina ,I Ciraldo ,L Pandola ,L La Fauci ,S Firat ,S O Solakcı ,G Russo ,F Pinna ,R Linares ,A Spatafora ,F Iazzi ,M Cutuli ,I Boztosun ,Aydın Yıldırım ,M Cavallaro ,E.r Chávez Lomelí ,G A Brischetto ,P Amador-Valenzuela ,G A Souliotis ,F Delaunay ,G Lanzalone ,M Fisichella ,J R B Oliveira ,S Tudisco ,V Soukeras ,A Hacisalihoglu ,V A B Zagatto

doi:10.3390/universe7030058

Abstract

Double charge exchange (DCE) reactions could provide experimentally driven information about nuclear matrix elements of interest in the context of neutrinoless double-β decay. To achieve this goal, a detailed description of the reaction mechanism is mandatory. This requires the full characterization of the initial and final-state interactions, which are poorly known for many of the projectile-target systems involved in future DCE studies. Among these, we intend to study the 20Ne + 130Te and 18O + 116Sn systems at 15.3 AMeV, which are particularly relevant due to their connection with the 130Te→130Xe and 116Cd→116Sn double-β decays. We measure the elastic and inelastic scattering cross-section angular distributions and compare them with theoretical calculations performed in the optical model, one-step distorted wave Born approximation, and coupled-channel approaches using the São Paulo double-folding optical potential. A good description of the experimental data in the whole explored range of transferred momenta is obtained provided that couplings with the 21+ states of the projectile and target are explicitly included within the coupled-channel approach. These results are relevant also in the analysis of other quasi-elastic reaction channels in these systems, in which the same couplings should be included.

Highlights

The intrinsic nature of neutrinos is one of major hot cases in fundamental physics
A 950 ± 50 μg/cm2 CH2 target was placed after the primary one in order to reduce the amount of partially stripped ejectiles emerging from the target [48], which represents a background for other reaction channels measured in the same experimental campaign [8]
The results of the optical model (OM), one-step distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA), and CCs’ calculations for the quasi-elastic and inelastic scattering in 20Ne + 130Te are shown in Figures 3 and 4, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The intrinsic nature of neutrinos is one of major hot cases in fundamental physics. It is unclear whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana particles. Promising experiments to establish the Majorana or Dirac nature of neutrinos are presently conceived of by searching for the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay in nuclei such as 48Ca, 76Ge, 116Cd and 130Te, 136Xe, with half-lives higher than 1025y [2,3,4]. The observation of the 0νββ decay would prove the Majorana nature of neutrinos, and the measurement of the half-life would allow for the determination of the effective neutrino mass, once appropriate nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) are accurately known [5,6,7]

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion