Nucleon-nucleon short-ranged correlations, β decay, and the unitarity of the CKM matrix

Abstract

The influence of nucleon-nucleon short-ranged correlations (SRC) on nuclear super-allowed $\beta$ decay is examined. The need for this is driven by the observed depletion of spectroscopic strength obtained in studies of $(e,e')$ and $(d,^3{\rm He})$ reactions on a wide variety of nuclei. We show that the influence of SRC is model-dependent, but may be very substantial. The $^{46}$V nucleus is used as an example. The resulting impact on studies of the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element is discussed.