Published August 1995 | Version v1
Journal article

Further studies on the evidence for a 17-keV neutrino in a 14C-doped germanium detector

  • 1. Physics Department, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee 38505 (United States)
  • 2. Department of Materials Science and Mineral Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
  • 3. Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
  • 4. Physics Department, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 (United States)
  • 5. Physics Institute, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo (Brazil)
  • 6. Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
  • 7. Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

Description

We have studied the beta spectrum of 14C using a unique 14C-doped germanium detector. In 1991 an initial report was made of a distortion in the spectrum that could be explained by the emission of a 17-keV neutrino in approximately 1% of the decays. Further tests have shown that the observed distortion was most likely caused by systematic effects related to the detector's active guard ring. A new measurement with a smaller data sample shows no sign of this distortion. In addition, we find the Q value of 14C decay to be 155.95±0.07(stat.)±0.21(sys.) keV, in disagreement with a previous precision measurement

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review. C, Nuclear Physics
Journal Volume
52
Journal Issue
2
Journal Page Range
p. 1028-1040.
ISSN
0556-2813
CODEN
PRVCAN