Description of double beta decay within continuum-QRPA

Abstract

A method to calculate the nuclear double beta decay ($2\nu \beta \beta$- and $0\nu \beta \beta$-) amplitudes within the continuum random phase approximation (cQRPA) is formulated. Calculations of the $\beta \beta$ transition amplitudes within the cQRPA are performed for ^{76}Ge, ^{100}Mo and ^{130}Te. A rather simple nuclear Hamiltonian consisting of phenomenological mean field and zero-range residual particle-hole and particle-particle interaction is used. The calculated M^{2ν} are almost not affected when the single-particle continuum is taken into account. At the same time, a regular suppression of the $0\nu \beta \beta$-amplitude is found that can be associated with additional ground state correlations due to collective states in the continuum. It is expected that future inclusion of the nucleon pairing in the single-particle continuum will somewhat compensate the suppression.

20 pages, 1 figure, published version

References in corpus (5)

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• Improved short-range correlations and 0nbb nuclear matrix elements of 76Ge and 82Se
• Nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double beta decay with improved short-range correlations
• Short-range correlations and neutrinoless double beta decay
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Overconstrained estimates of neutrinoless double beta decay within the QRPA
• Gamow-Teller strength distributions for double-beta-decaying nuclei within continuum-QRPA