0000000000181025
AUTHOR
Francesco La Via
Recent results on heavy-ion induced reactions of interest for neutrinoless double beta decay at INFN-LNS
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 challe…
Theoretical and experimental study of the role of cell-cell dipole interaction in dielectrophoretic devices: application to polynomial electrodes
BACKGROUND: We aimed to investigate the effect of cell-cell dipole interactions in the equilibrium distributions in dielectrophoretic devices. METHODS: We used a three dimensional coupled Monte Carlo-Poisson method to theoretically study the final distribution of a system of uncharged polarizable particles suspended in a static liquid medium under the action of an oscillating non-uniform electric field generated by polynomial electrodes. The simulated distributions have been compared with experimental ones observed in the case of MDA-MB-231 cells in the same operating conditions. RESULTS: The real and simulated distributions are consistent. In both cases the cells distribution near the elec…
The NUMEN project @ LNS : Status and perspectives
The aim of the NUMEN project is to access the Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME), involved in the half life of the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by measuring the cross sections of Heavy Ions (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions with high accuracy. First evidence of the possibility to get quantitative information about NME from experiments is shown in the reaction 40Ca(18O,18Ne)40Ar at 270 MeV, performed with MAGNEX spectrometer using Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) beams at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania. Preliminary tests on 116Sn and 116Cd target are already performed. High beam intensity is the new frontiers for these studies. peerReviewed
NURE: An ERC project to study nuclear reactions for neutrinoless double beta decay
Neutrinoless double beta decay (0{\nu}\b{eta}\b{eta}) is considered the best potential resource to determine the absolute neutrino mass scale. Moreover, if observed, it will signal that the total lepton number is not conserved and neutrinos are their own anti-particles. Presently, this physics case is one of the most important research beyond Standard Model and might guide the way towards a Grand Unified Theory of fundamental interactions. Since the \b{eta}\b{eta} decay process involves nuclei, its analysis necessarily implies nuclear structure issues. The 0{\nu}\b{eta}\b{eta} decay rate can be expressed as a product of independent factors: the phase-space factors, the nuclear matrix elemen…