Resonant antineutrino induced electron capture with low energy bound-beta beams

Abstract

Antineutrino induced electron capture is a resonant process that can have a larg e cross-section for beams of monochromatic antineutrinos. We calculate the cross-section of this process and investigate an experimental setup where monochromatic antineutrinos are produced from the bound-beta decay of fully ionized radioactive atoms in a storage ring. If the energy between the source and the target is well matched, the cross-sections can be significantly larger than the cross-sections of commonly used non-resonant processes. The rate that can be achieved at a small distance between the source and two targets of $10^3$ kg is up to one interaction per $8.3\cdot 10^{18}$ decaying atoms. For a source-target distance corresponding to the first atmospheric neutrino osc illation maximum, the largest rate is one interaction per $3.2\cdot 10^{21}$ decaying atoms, provided that extremely stringent monochromaticity conditions ($10^{-7}$ or better) are achieved in future ion beams.

6 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables