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Direct experimental constraints on the spatial extent of a neutrino wavepacket

Journal Article · · Nature (London)
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  1. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (United States)
  3. TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
  4. Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Caparica (Portugal)
  5. Université de Strasbourg (France)
  6. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  7. STAR Cryoelectonics LLC, Santa Fe, NM (United States)
  8. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  9. XIA LLC, Oakland, CA (United States)
  10. Université de Caen (France)
  11. TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada); McMaster University, Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  12. Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau (France)
  13. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  14. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (United States); TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Despite their high relative abundance in our Universe, neutrinos are the least understood fundamental particles of nature. In fact, the quantum properties of neutrinos emitted in experimentally relevant sources are theoretically contested and the spatial extent of the neutrino wavepacket is only loosely constrained by reactor neutrino oscillation data with a spread of 13 orders of magnitude. Here we present a method to directly access this quantity by precisely measuring the energy width of the recoil daughter nucleus emitted in the radioactive decay of beryllium-7. The final state in the decay process contains a recoiling lithium-7 nucleus, which is entangled with an electron neutrino at creation. The lithium-7 energy spectrum is measured to high precision by directly embedding beryllium-7 radioisotopes into a high-resolution superconducting tunnel junction that is operated as a cryogenic sensor. Under this approach, we set a lower limit on the Heisenberg spatial uncertainty of the recoil daughter of 6.2 pm, which implies that the final-state system is localized at a scale more than a thousand times larger than the nucleus itself. From this measurement, the first, to our knowledge, direct lower limit on the spatial extent of a neutrino wavepacket is extracted. These results may have implications in several areas including the theoretical understanding of neutrino properties, the nature of localization in weak nuclear decays and the interpretation of neutrino physics data.
Research Organization:
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830; AC52-07NA27344; SC0000661; SC0021245; SC0023633
OSTI ID:
3001573
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 2518790
OSTI ID: 2526244
OSTI ID: 2537980
Report Number(s):
LLNL--JRNL-862609; PNNL-SA--197541
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Journal Name: Nature (London) Journal Issue: 8051 Vol. 638; ISSN 1476-4687; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
Beryllium-7
Experimental nuclear physics
Experimental particle physics
Matter waves and particle beams
Neutrino
STJ
Wavepacket