Affiliation:
1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697;
Abstract
The possibility of double-beta (ββ) decay was recognized in the mid 1930s, and by 1939 something of its potential to reveal fundamental properties of the neutrino was known as well. But experimental observation of the phenomenon was out of reach. Despite numerous attempts over the next 30 years, and strong suggestions of its existence from geochemical experiments, ββ decay had not been observed to occur in the laboratory. Our group at UC Irvine took up the search in the early 1970s, first with a cloud chamber and then with a time-projection chamber. The following narrative traces a discovery process that unfolded over the ensuing 15 years—a sequence of setbacks and false starts punctuated by occasional victories and, ultimately, by a definitive laboratory observation of two-neutrino ββ decay, in August 1987.
Subject
Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Cited by
3 articles.
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1. The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay;La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento;2024-01-09
2. The Search for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay;Case Studies in Experimental Physics;2022
3. Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: Status and Prospects;Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science;2019-10-19