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Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 012501 (2003) [4 pages]

Novel Search for Heavy ν Mixing from the β+ Decay of 38mK Confined in an Atom Trap

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M. Trinczek1,*, A. Gorelov1, D. Melconian1, W. P. Alford2, D. Asgeirsson3, D. Ashery4, J. A. Behr3, P. G. Bricault3, J. M. D’Auria1, J. Deutsch5, J. Dilling6,3, M. Dombsky3, P. Dubé1, S. Eaton3, J. Fingler3, U. Giesen3, S. Gu3, O. Häusser1,†, K. P. Jackson3, B. Lee3, J. H. Schmid6, T. J. Stocki1, T. B. Swanson1, and W. Wong3
1Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
2University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7
3TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 2A3
4Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel
5Université Catholique de Louvain, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
6Physikalisches Institut der Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

Received 19 March 2002; published 2 January 2003

A new technique, full neutrino momentum reconstruction, is used to set limits on the admixture of heavy neutrinos into the electron neutrino. We measure coincidences between nuclear recoils and positrons from the beta decay of trapped radioactive atoms and deduce the neutrino momentum. A search for peaks in the reconstructed recoil time-of-flight spectrum as a function of positron energy is performed. The admixture upper limits range from 4×10-3 to 2×10-2 and are the best direct limits for neutrinos (as opposed to antineutrinos) for the mass region of 0.7 to 3.5 MeV.

© 2003 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.012501
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.012501
PACS:
23.40.Bw, 14.60.Pq, 32.80.Pj

*Present address: MPI-K, Postfach 10 39 80, D-69029 Heidelberg, Germany.

Email address: trin@triumf.ca

†Deceased.

 
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