Speaker
Nicolo de Groot
(Radboud University and Nikhef)
Description
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 propose to use 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 (σv)ν = 1.52 × 10^−45 cm^2. This is 40% of the capture cross-section for tritium and makes 241Pu a promising alternative for 3-H
Primary author
Nicolo de Groot
(Radboud University and Nikhef)
