O. Moreno

Role of sterile neutrino warm dark matter in rhenium and tritium beta decays

Abstract Sterile neutrinos with mass in the range of one to a few keV are important as extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics and are serious dark matter (DM) candidates. This DM mass scale (warm DM) is in agreement with both cosmological and galactic observations. We study the role of a keV sterile neutrino through its mixing with a light active neutrino in rhenium 187 and tritium beta decays. We pinpoint the energy spectrum of the beta particle, 0 ≲ T e ≲ ( Q β − m s ) , as the region where a sterile neutrino could be detected and where its mass m s could be measured. This energy region is at least 1 keV away from the region suitable to measure the mass of the light active neutrino, located near the endpoint Q β . The emission of a keV sterile neutrino in a beta decay could show up as a small kink in the spectrum of the emitted beta particle. With this in view, we perform a careful calculation of the rhenium and tritium beta spectra and estimate the size of this perturbation by means of the dimensionless ratio R of the sterile neutrino to the active neutrino contributions. We comment on the possibility of searching for sterile neutrino signatures in two experiments which are currently running at present, MARE and KATRIN, focused on the rhenium 187 and tritium beta decays respectively.

Meson-exchange currents and quasielastic predictions for charged-current neutrino-C 12 scattering in the superscaling approach

We evaluate and discuss the impact of meson-exchange currents (MECs) on charged-current quasielastic neutrino cross sections. We consider the nuclear transverse response arising from two-particle two-hole states excited by the action of electromagnetic, purely isovector meson-exchange currents in a fully relativistic framework based on the work by the Torino Collaboration [A. D. Pace, M. Nardi, W. M. Alberico, T. W. Donnelly, and A. Molinari, Nucl. Phys. A726, 303 (2003)]. An accurate parametrization of this MEC response as a function of the momentum and energy transfers involved is presented. Results of neutrino-nucleus cross sections using this MEC parametrization together with a recent scaling approach for the one-particle one-hole contributions (named SuSAv2) are compared with experimental data.

Extracellular accumulation of high-specific-activity peroxidase by cell suspension cultures of cowpea

Cell suspension cultures of cowpea (Vigna sp.) were able to produce extracellular peroxidase. Different growth regulator concentrations induced different peroxidase activity in callus. The crude extracellular medium after four weeks of culture showed higher (6 times) specific peroxidase activity and higher thermo stability than commercial horse-radish peroxidase. The commercial production of peroxidase enzyme from cowpea by utilizing plant cell cultures is discussed.

Parity-violating elastic electron scattering and nuclear structure

We discuss parity-violating elastic electron scattering as a complementary tool in the race for more precise determinations of neutron densities in nuclei. Isovector and isoscalar densities and form factors in N > Z and N = Z stable nuclei are discussed taking 208Pb and 28Si as examples. Distorted wave calculations of parity-violating asymmetries are shown and are compared to the plane wave impulse approximation. The extraction of the ratio between neutron and proton monopole form factors is discussed. The isospin mixing produced by Coulomb interaction in the ground state of N = Z nuclei with Skyrme selfconsistent mean fields is also discussed.

Nuclear isospin mixing and elastic parity-violating electron scattering

The influence of nuclear isospin mixing on parity-violating elastic electron scattering is studied for the even–even, N=Z nuclei 12C, 24Mg, 28Si, and 32S. Their ground-state wave functions have been obtained using a self-consistent axially-symmetric mean-field approximation with density-dependent effective two-body Skyrme interactions. Some differences from previous shell-model calculations appear for the isovector Coulomb form factors which play a role in determining the parity-violating asymmetry. To gain an understanding of how these differences arise, the results have been expanded in a spherical harmonic oscillator basis. Results are obtained not only within the plane-wave Born approximation, but also using the distorted-wave Born approximation for comparison with potential future experimental studies of parity-violating electron scattering. To this end, for each nucleus the focus is placed on kinematic ranges where the signal (isospin-mixing effects on the parity-violating asymmetry) and the experimental figure-of-merit are maximized. Strangeness contributions to the asymmetry are also briefly discussed, since they and the isospin mixing contributions may play comparable roles for the nuclei being studied at the low momentum transfers of interest in the present work.

Charged-current inclusive neutrino cross sections in the SuperScaling model including quasielastic, pion production and meson-exchange contributions

Charged current inclusive neutrino-nucleus cross sections are evaluated using the superscaling model for quasielastic scattering and its extension to the pion production region. The contribution of two-particle-two-hole vector meson-exchange current excitations is also considered within a fully relativistic model tested against electron scattering data. The results are compared with the inclusive neutrino-nucleus data from the T2K and SciBooNE experiments. For experiments where

β-decay in neutron-deficient Hg, Pb, and Po isotopes

\langle E_\nu \rangle \sim 0.8

Single- and low-lying-states dominance in two-neutrino double-beta decay

GeV, the three mechanisms considered in this work provide good agreement with the data. However, when the neutrino energy is larger, effects from beyond the

Nuclear shape dependence of Gamow-Teller distributions in neutron-deficient Pb isotopes

\Delta

Theoretical mean-field and experimental occupation probabilities in the double-beta decay system {sup 76}Ge to {sup 76}Se

also appear to be playing a role. The results show that processes induced by two-body currents play a minor role at the kinematics considered.