Weak magnetism correction to allowed β decay for reactor antineutrino spectra

X. B. Wang and A. C. Hayes
Phys. Rev. C 95, 064313 – Published 15 June 2017

Abstract

The weak magnetism correction and its uncertainty to nuclear β decay play a major role in determining the significance of the reactor neutrino anomaly. Here we examine the common approximation used for one-body weak magnetism in the calculation of fission antineutrino spectra, wherein matrix elements of the orbital angular-momentum operator contribution to the magnetic-dipole current are assumed to be proportional to those of the spin operator. Although we find this approximation invalid for a large set of nuclear structure situations, we conclude that it is valid for the relevant allowed β decays between fission fragments. In particular, the uncertainty in the fission antineutrino due to the uncertainty in the one-body weak magnetism correction is found to be less than 1%. Thus, the dominant uncertainty from weak magnetism for reactor neutrino fluxes lies in the uncertainty in the two-body meson-exchange magnetic-dipole current.

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  • Received 26 February 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.95.064313

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

X. B. Wang

  • School of Science, Huzhou University, Huzhou 313000, China

A. C. Hayes

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 6 — June 2017

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