Superallowed fermi beta decay and Coulomb mixing in nuclei
- Cyclotron Institute, Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas 77843 (United States)
- Physics Department, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, (Canada)
Superallowed 0{sup +}{yields}0{sup +} nuclear beta decay provides a direct measure of the weak vector coupling constant, G{sub v}. We survey current world data on the nine accurately determined transitions of this type, which range from the decay of {sup 10}C to that of {sup 54}Co, and demonstrate that the results confirm conservation of the weak vector current (CVC) but differ at the 98% confidence level from the unitarity condition for the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. We examine the reliability of the small calculated corrections that have been applied to the data, and conclude that there are no evident defects although the Coulomb correction, {delta}{sub C}, depends sensitively on nuclear structure and thus needs to be constrained independently. The potential importance of a result in disagreement with unitarity, clearly indicates the need for further work to confirm or deny the discrepancy. We examine the options and recommend priorities for new experiments and improved calculations. Some of the required experiments depend upon the availability of intense radioactive beams. Others are possible with existing facilities. (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics.
- OSTI ID:
- 20216635
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 481, Issue 1; Other Information: PBD: 2 Sep 1999; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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