Two-neutrino $\beta \beta$ decay of ${}^{136}$Xe to the first excited $0^{+}$ state in ${}^{136}$Ba

Abstract

We calculate the nuclear matrix element for the two-neutrino $\beta \beta$ decay of ${}^{136}$Xe into the first excited $0^{+}$ state of ${}^{136}$Ba. We use different many-body methods: the quasiparticle random-phase approximation (QRPA) framework, the nuclear shell model, the interacting boson model (IBM-2), and an effective field theory (EFT) for $\beta$ and $\beta \beta$ decays. While the QRPA suggests a decay rate at the edge of current experimental limits, the shell model points to a half-life about two orders of magnitude longer. The predictions of the IBM-2 and the EFT lie in between, and the latter provides systematic uncertainties at leading order. An analysis of the running sum of the nuclear matrix element indicates that subtle cancellations between the contributions of intermediate states can explain the different theoretical predictions. For the EFT, we also present results for two-neutrino $\beta \beta$ decays to the first excited $0^{+}$ state in other nuclei.

9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; corresponds to the published version

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Neutrinoless $\beta \beta$-decay nuclear matrix elements from two-neutrino $\beta \beta$-decay data
• Neutrinoless double beta decay rates in the presence of light sterile neutrinos
• Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Sensitivity of the XLZD Rare Event Observatory
• Effective field theories for collective excitations of atomic nuclei
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• Two-neutrino $\beta \beta$ decay to excited states at next-to-leading order
• Large-scale shell-model investigation of $2\nu$ECEC in ${}^{132}$Ba and ${}^{78}$Kr