Nuclear Zemach Moments and Finite-Size Corrections to Allowed Beta Decay

Abstract

The finite-size correction to $\beta$-decay plays an important role in determining the expected antineutrino spectra from reactors at a level that is important for the reactor-neutrino anomaly. Here we express the leading-order finite-size correction to allowed $\beta$-decay in terms of Zemach moments. We calculate the Zemach moments within a Hartree-Fock model using a Skyrme-like energy density functional. We find that the Zemach moments are increased relative to predictions based on the simple assumption of identical uniform nuclear-charge and weak-transition densities. However, for allowed ground-state to ground-state transitions in medium and heavy nuclei, the detailed nuclear structure calculations do not change the finite-size corrections significantly from the simple model predictions, and are only 10-15% larger than the latter even though the densities differ significantly.

References in corpus (3)

• The Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly
• Proton elastic scattering from tin isotopes at 295 MeV and systematic change of neutron density distributions
• Zemach moments of 3He and 4He

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Experimental searches for the chiral magnetic effect in heavy-ion collisions
• Determine the neutron skin type by relativistic isobaric collisions
• Diagnosing the Reactor Antineutrino Anomaly with Global Antineutrino Flux Data
• Measuring neutron skin by grazing isobaric collisions
• Impact of initial fluctuations and nuclear deformations in isobar collisions
• Probing neutron skin and symmetry energy with relativistic isobar collisions