Recent results on heavy-ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay at INFN-LNS

Journal of Physics: Conference Series PAPER • OPEN ACCESS Recent results on heavy-ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay at INFN-LNS To cite this article: F. Cappuzzello et al 2020 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1643 012074 View the article online for updates and enhancements. You may also like The nuclear matrix elements of 0v decay and the NUMEN project at INFN-LNS F. Cappuzzello, C. Agodi, E. Aciksoz et al. - Conference on Neutrino and Nuclear Physics (CNNP2017) - Nuclear magnetic resonance study of sulfate reorientations in LiNaSO4 R A Shakhovoy, A Rakhmatullin, M Deschamps et al. - This content was downloaded from IP address 150.214.182.235 on 12/12/2022 at 12:00 Content from this work may be used under the terms of theCreativeCommonsAttribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 27th International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC2019) Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1643 (2020) 012074 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1643/1/012074 1 Recent results on heavy-ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay at INFN-LNS F. Cappuzzello1,2, (a, C. Agodi1, L. Acosta13, C. Altana1, P. Amador-Valenzuela27, N. Auerbach17, J. Barea31, J. Bellone1,2, R. Bijker28, D. Bonanno3, T. Borello- Lewin9, I. Boztosun16, V. Branchina3, S. Brasolin4, G. Brischetto1,2,34, O. Brunasso4, S. Burrello1,20, S. Calabrese1,2, L. Calabretta1, D. Calvo4, V. Capirossi4,6, D. Carbone1, M. Cavallaro1, L.E. Charon Garcia13, E.R. Chávez Lomelí13, R. Chen30, I. Ciraldo1,2, M. Colonna1, G. D’Agostino1,2, F. Delaunay4,6,22, N. Deshmukh23, H. Djapo16, G. De Geronimo21, K. De Los Rios13, C. Ferraresi4,8, J.L. Ferreira10, J. Ferretti32, P. Finocchiaro1, S. Firat16, M. Fisichella4, A. Foti3, G. Gallo1,2, H. Garcia-Tecocoatzi5,24, A. Hacisalihoglu25, A. Huerta-Hernandez13, Z.J. Kotila19, Y. Kucuk16, F. Iazzi4,6, G. Lanzalone1,7, J.A. Lay20, L. La Fauci1,2, F. La Via14, H. Lenske15, R. Linares10, D. Lo Presti2,3, J. Lubian10, J. Ma30, D. Marín- Lámbarri13, J. Mas Ruiz13, N.H. Medina9, D. R. Mendes10, P. Mereu4, M. Moralles26, L. Neri1, J.R.B. Oliveira9, A. Pakou11, L. Pandola1, H. Petrascu18, N. Pietralla29, F. Pinna4,6, S. Reito3, P. Ries29, M.R.D. Rodrigues9, A. D. Russo1, G. Russo2,3, E. Santopinto5, R.B.B. Santos33, L. Serbina18, O. Sgouros1, M.A.G. da Silveira33, S.O. Solakcı16, G. Souliotis12, V. Soukeras1, A. Spatafora1,2, D. Torresi1, S. Tudisco1, H. Vargas Hernandez13, R.I.M. Vsevolodovna5,24, J.S. Wang30, V. Werner29, Y.Y. Yang30, A. Yildirin16, V.A.B. Zagatto10 1Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy 2Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Ettore Majorana”, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy 3Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy 4Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino, Torino, Italy 5Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Genova, Genova, Italy 6 DISAT, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy 7Università degli Studi di Enna "Kore", Enna, Italy 8DIMEAS, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy 9Instituto de Fisica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil 10Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niteroi, Brazil 11Department of Physics and HINP, The University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece 12Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece 13Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México 14CNR-IMM, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy 15 Department of Physics, University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany 16Department of Physics, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey 17School of Physics and Astronomy Tel Aviv University, Israel 18IFIN-HH, Romania 19University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 27th International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC2019) Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1643 (2020) 012074 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1643/1/012074 2 20Departamento de FAMN, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain 21Stony Brook University, USA 22LPC Caen, Normandie Université, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CNRS/IN2P3, Caen, France 23Nuclear Physics Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, India 24Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Italy 25Institute of Natural Sciences, Karadeniz Teknik University, Turkey 26Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares IPEN/CNEN, Brazil 27Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Mexico 28Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México 29Institut fur Kernphysik, Technische Universitat Darmstadt, Germany 30Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China 31Universidad de Conception, Chile 32Department of Physics, Yale University, USA 33Centro Universitario FEI Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil 34Centro Siciliano di Fisica Nucleare e Struttura della Materia, Italy the author addresses here a) Corresponding author: cappuzz[email protected]t Abstract: The NUMEN project aims at accessing experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). In this view measurements of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reaction cross sections are performed with high-accuracy. In particular, the (18O,18Ne) and (20Ne,20O) reactions are used as tools for β+β+ and β-β- decays, respectively. In the experiments, performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, the beams are accelerated by the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) and the reaction ejectiles are detected the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer. The measured cross sections are challengingly low (a few nb), being the total reaction cross section much larger (a few b), thus a high sensitivity and a large rejection capability are demanded to the experimental set-up. This limits the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. A major upgrade of the LNS facility is under way in order to increase the experimental dataset of more than two orders of magnitude, still preserving the high sensitivity of the present set-up. When accomplished this effort will make the INFN-LNS as the state-of-the-art research infrastructure for the systematic study of all the cases of interest for 0νββ. In this view, frontiers technologies are going to be adopted for the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models are being developed in order to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections 1. Introduction The neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) is nowadays the most promising resource to establish the Majorana nature of neutrinos and potentially to shed light on the absolute neutrino mass and hierarchy. A critical aspect is that the associated Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) must be known with good accuracy, despite the intrinsic many-body nature of the involved states of the parent and daughter nuclei makes this task particularly demanding. An updated comparison of the results of NME calculations, obtained within various nuclear structure frameworks [1-4], indicates that significant differences are indeed found, which makes the present situation not satisfactory. In addition, some assumption common to different competing calculations, like the unavoidable truncation of the nuclear many body wavefunction, could cause overall systematic uncertainties. 27th International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC2019) Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1643 (2020) 012074 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1643/1/012074 3 NUMEN [5-7] proposes to use HI-DCE reactions as tools to access quantitative information, relevant for 0νββ decay NME. These reactions are characterized by the transfer of two charge units, leaving the mass number unchanged, and can proceed by a sequential nucleon-transfer mechanism or by exchange of two isovector mesons, in an uncorrelated or correlated fashion. Despite 0νββ decays and HI-DCE reactions are mediated by different interactions, they present a number of similarities. Among those, the key aspects are that initial and final nuclear states are the same and the transition operators in both cases present a superposition of short-range isospin, spin-isospin and rank-two tensor components with a relevant available momentum (100 MeV/c or so). In addition, NUMEN aims at the exploration of all the relevant reaction channels promoted by the projectile/target interaction. They include elastic and inelastic scattering, single and double nucleon transfer reactions and single charge exchange reactions. 2. Status of the NUMEN project NUMEN is conceived in a long-range time perspective, in the view of a comprehensive study of many candidate systems for 0νββ decay. Moreover, the project promotes and is strictly connected with a renewal of the INFN-LNS research infrastructure and with a specific R&D activity on detectors, materials and instrumentation. In the last years the project has been developing (NUMEN Phase2) following a threefold scheme: measuring DCE cross sections for a few cases of interest; making a deep R&D investigation for the new detection technologies to be used for the future high luminosity beams; developing a fully microscopic and quantum theory for DCE reactions, specifically conceived to extract nuclear structure information from measured cross sections. Below some of the main achievements of this activity is outlined. 3. The experiments The experimental campaigns have been conducted so far at INFN-LNS, using the K800 Superconducting Cyclotron to accelerate beams and the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer for the detection of the ejectiles. MAGNEX is a large acceptance magnetic device made up of a large aperture vertically focusing quadrupole and a horizontally bending dipole magnet. It allows the identification of heavy ions with quite high mass (ΔA/A∼1/160), angle (Δθ∼0.2°) and energy resolutions (ΔE/E∼1/1000), within a large solid angle (Ω∼50 msr) and momentum range (−14% < Δp/p < +10%). High-resolution measurements for quasi-elastic processes, characterized by differential cross-sections falling down to tens of nb/sr, were already performed by this setup [8-14]. A crucial feature is the implementation of a technique of trajectory reconstruction, based on differential algebraic techniques, which allows solving the equation of motion of each detected particle to 10th order [15]. The experimental activity proposed and presently in progress consists of two main classes of experiments, corresponding to the exploration of the two directions of isospin lowering τ− τ− and rising τ+ τ+, characteristic of β−β− and β+β+ decays respectively [16-18]. 3.1. Experiments with 18O Beam (  +  + Direction) For the experiments of this class, the reaction channels of our interest are: elastic and inelastic scattering (18O,18O); DCE reaction (18O,18Ne); charge-exchange reaction (18O,18F); two-proton pickup reaction (18O,20Ne); one-proton pickup reaction (18O,19F); two-neutron stripping reaction (18O,16O); one-neutron stripping reaction (18O,17O). One of the main challenges of such experiments is the measurement at very forward angles, including zero-degree. This is performed by placing the spectrometer with its optical axis at +3° with respect to the beam axis. Thanks to its large angular acceptance, a range −2° < θlab < 9° is thus covered. 116Sn, 76Se and 48Ti are the targets already explored via (18O,18Ne) reaction at 15 and 22 AMeV in order to study the 116Sn → 116Cd, 76Se → 76Ge and 48Ti → 48Ca transitions, respectively, and the competing channels as mentioned above. The reduction and analysis of the collected data is presently in progress. 27th International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC2019) Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1643 (2020) 012074 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1643/1/012074 4 3.2. Experiments with 20Ne Beam (β−β− Direction) In the class of experiments with 20Ne10+ beams, the reaction channels we are interested are the following: Elastic and inelastic scattering (20Ne,20Ne); DCE reaction (20Ne,20O); Charge Exchange reaction (20Ne,20F); Two-proton stripping reaction (20Ne,18O); One-proton stripping reaction (20Ne,19F); Twoneutron pickup reaction (20Ne,22Ne); One-neutron pickup reaction (20Ne,21Ne). The spectrometer optical axis is typically placed at −3°, thus the covered angular range is −8° < θlab < +3°. A peculiarity of these experiments is that the beam components 20Ne9+ and 20Ne8+, produced by the interaction of the beam with the electrons of the target material, have a magnetic rigidity similar to the ions of interest. Therefore, they enter in the FPD acceptance, causing a limitation in the rate tolerable by the detector. In order to mitigate this problem two aluminium shields are mounted upstream the sensitive region of the focal plane detector. In addition, an appropriate second foil (post-stripper) is mounted downstream of the isotopic target. Recently a specific study of different materials to be used as post-stripper has been performed [19]. The systems already experimentally explored using the (20Ne,20O) reaction at 15 AMeV are the 116Cd target (to study the 116Cd → 116Sn transition), the 130Te (for the 130Te → 130Xe) and the 76Ge (for the 76Ge → 76Se). The data reduction and analysis is in progress. 4. FEATURES OF R&D The results of NUMEN Phase 1 indicate that suitable information from DCE reactions can be extracted [8]. However, for a systematic exploration of all the cases of interest for 0vbb a much larger dataset of DCE data is necessary, including statistically significant data at different bombarding energies and with several isotopic targets. These considerations suggest that the DCE experiments should be performed with much higher beam current. In particular, for a systematic study of the many “hot” cases of ββ decays, an upgraded set-up, able to work with a two or three orders of magnitude higher current than the present, is necessary. As a consequence, the present limits of beam power (100 W) for the CS accelerator and acceptable rate for the MAGNEX focal plane detector (few kHz) must be sensibly revised. This goal can be achieved by a substantial change in the technologies implemented in the beam extraction, in the detection of the ejectiles and in the target cooling. For the accelerator the change of the beam extraction technology from electrostatic deflector to a stripper foil is an adequate choice [20]. For the spectrometer the main foreseen upgrades are: 1. The construction of a FPD tracker based on micro patterned gas detector [21]; 2. The construction of a wall of telescopes of SiC-CsI detectors for ion identification [22-23]; 3. The introduction of an array of scintillators for measuring the coincident -rays; 4. The development of suitable front-end and read-out electronics, for a fast read-out of the detector signals, a high signal to noise ratio and adequate hardness to radiation [24]; 5. The implementation of a suitable architecture for data acquisition, storage and data handling, including accurate detector response simulations; 6. The enhancement of the maximum accepted magnetic rigidity, with minimal distortion of the measured magnetic field for the optical elements [25-26]; 7. The installation of a beam dump to stop the high power beams. In addition, we are developing the technology for suitable nuclear targets to be used in the experiments. Here the challenge is to produce and cool isotopically enriched thin films able to resist to the high power dissipated by the interaction of the intense beams with the target [27]. 5. Development of DCE theory NUMEN is fostering the development of a specific theory program to allow an accurate extraction of nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections. 27th International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC2019) Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1643 (2020) 012074 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1643/1/012074 5 In ref. 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