REVIEW 2 cited by
First observation of two-neutrino double electron capture in ¹²⁴Xe with XENON1T
Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.
This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.
SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event
T0 review · schema-true
One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.
pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp
First observation of two-neutrino double electron capture in ¹²⁴Xe with XENON1T
read the original abstract
Two-neutrino double electron capture ($2\nu$ECEC) is a second-order Weak process with predicted half-lives that surpass the age of the Universe by many orders of magnitude. Until now, indications for $2\nu$ECEC decays have only been seen for two isotopes, $^{78}$Kr and $^{130}$Ba, and instruments with very low background levels are needed to detect them directly with high statistical significance. The $2\nu$ECEC half-life provides an important input for nuclear structure models and its measurement represents a first step in the search for the neutrinoless double electron capture processes ($0\nu$ECEC). A detection of the latter would have implications for the nature of the neutrino and give access to the absolute neutrino mass. Here we report on the first direct observation of $2\nu$ECEC in $^{124}$Xe with the XENON1T Dark Matter detector. The significance of the signal is $4.4\sigma$ and the corresponding half-life $T_{1/2}^{2\nu\text{ECEC}} = (1.8\pm 0.5_\text{stat}\pm 0.1_\text{sys})\times 10^{22}\;\text{y}$ is the longest ever measured directly. This study demonstrates that the low background and large target mass of xenon-based Dark Matter detectors make them well suited to measuring other rare processes as well, and it highlights the broad physics reach for even larger next-generation experiments.
Forward citations
Cited by 2 Pith papers
-
Search for two-neutrino double electron capture in $^{36}$Ar with the DarkSide-50 detector
No excess is seen for 2EC2ν in 36Ar; DarkSide-50 sets T1/2 > 9.2×10^19 yr (90% CL) with ~12 ton-day UAr exposure and 0.007% 36Ar abundance.
-
Positron-Emitting and Electron-Capturing Double-Beta Processes in the Standard Model and Beyond
Nuclear matrix elements and phase-space factors are computed for 2ν and 0ν positron-emitting double-beta modes in three isotopes, yielding sensitivity to SMEFT lepton-number-violating operators at 1-100 TeV and showin...
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.