Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

www.elsevier.com/locate/nuclphysa

On the double-beta decays of 70Zn, 86Kr, 94Zr,

104 Ru, 110 Pd and 124 Sn
Jouni Suhonen
Department of Physics, P.O. Box 35 (YFL), FI-40014 University of Jyvskyl, Finland
Received 23 February 2011; received in revised form 3 May 2011; accepted 8 June 2011
Available online 12 June 2011

Abstract
Double-beta decays of 70 Zn, 86 Kr, 94 Zr, 104 Ru, 110 Pd and 124 Sn to the final ground states and the decays
of 110 Pd and 124 Sn to the excited states in 110 Cd and 124 Te are studied in the framework of the proton
neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) combined with the multiple-commutator
model (MCM) for description of decays to the excited final states. Reasonably large single-particle model
spaces and G-matrix-based effective nuclear forces are used to compute the relevant nuclear matrix elements
and decay half-lives. The present study is among the very few that have been dedicated to double-beta decays of these nuclei, although the associated double-beta Q values exceed 1.0 MeV for the ground-state
decays.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Quasiparticle random-phase approximation; Multiple-commutator model; Two-neutrino double-beta decay;
Neutrinoless double-beta decay

1. Introduction
Double-beta decays are among the most interesting disintegration processes occurring in
atomic nuclei. The two-neutrino double-beta (2) decay is a second-order weak process occurring in the standard model of electro-weak interactions. Several measured values of the 2
half-lives are available at the present [1]. The neutrinoless mode of double-beta decay (0 decay) is the more interesting channel of disintegration involving necessarily a massive Majorana
E-mail address: jouni.suhonen@phys.jyu.fi.
0375-9474/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysa.2011.06.021

64

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

neutrino and the associated lepton-number violation [2]. Detection of the 0 decay would help
in solving the neutrino-mass problem and could reveal the mechanisms behind the 0 decay
[35]. Only one claim about the detection of this decay mode has been put forward in the case of
the 0 decay of 76 Ge [6].
Since the double-beta decays involve nuclear states as the initial and final states of decay
the decay rates depend on the corresponding nuclear wave functions. The calculated wave functions can be exploited to access the double-beta-decay rates by introducing the corresponding
nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) of the 2 and 0 decays [2]. The ultimate goal of the
nuclear-structure calculations is to produce values of the 0 NMEs so that one is in a position to extract the value of the (effective) neutrino mass from the eventually measured 0
half-lives. The calculation of these NMEs poses a considerable challenge to the nuclear-structure
theorists [2]. The most commonly used nuclear model in double-beta calculations is the proton
neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) [79] and its various extensions,
like the renormalized pnQRPA (RQRPA) [10,11], the higher-RPA theories like the multiplecommutator model (MCM) [1220], the self-consistent RQRPA [21] and boson-expansion methods [22]. In addition to the QRPA based models also the interacting shell model (ISM) [23] has
been used recently [24,25], as also the interacting bosonfermion model (IBA-2) [26] and the
projected HartreeFockBogoliubov (PHFB) mean-field approach [27]. Very recently also the
0 NMEs computed by the use of the energy-density-functional formalism [28] have become
available.
The adopted form of the nucleonnucleon short-range correlations affects the final computed
values of the 0 NMEs. The issue of the short-range correlations is not yet settled but definite
progress has been made recently by finding alternatives to the traditional Jastrow correlator [29].
These alternatives are the UCOM correlator [3033], the renormalization method of Ref. [34]
and the self-consistent coupled-cluster method [35]. In the present work both Jastrow and UCOM
correlators are used. Also the adopted energies of the mean-field orbitals affect the results of the
nuclear-structure calculations since they affect the occupancies of the individual orbitals close to
the proton and neutron Fermi surfaces. These occupancies can be based on experimental data [36,
37] or some readjustments of the single-particle energies as described e.g. in [3840] and most
recently examined in [41,42] and [43]. In the present work the WoodsSaxon single-particle
energies are adopted as starting point and they are shifted by small amounts to improve the
description of the low-energy excitation spectra of the neighboring odd-mass nuclei, as suggested
e.g. in the double-beta-decay studies of Refs. [15,16,19].
In this work the pnQRPA formalism is used to compute the NMEs of 2 and 0 decays
of the nuclei 70 Zn, 86 Kr, 94 Zr, 104 Ru, 110 Pd and 124 Sn to the final ground states in the nuclei
70 Ge, 86 Sr, 94 Mo, 104 Pd, 110 Cd and 124 Te. For all these decays the decay energy (Q value) is
larger than 1.0 MeV and thus it is of interest to compute the corresponding decay rates. Very
few other calculations of these decay rates exist but whenever possible the present results are
compared with the available earlier ones. At the same time also the decays of 110 Pd and 124 Sn to
the excited states in 110 Cd and 124 Te are possible. The rates of these decays are also computed
here and compared with available earlier calculations. No measured half-lives exist for these
nuclei, only some lower limits. Some data exist for the lateral beta-decay feeding of the nuclei
involved in these decays. This helps in pinning down the value of the protonneutron particle
particle interaction strength parameter, gpp introduced in the works [79]. The adjustment of this
parameter is crucial to obtain reliable 2 and 0 decay rates since the magnitudes of the
pnQRPA-calculated NMEs depend more or less sensitively on the value of gpp [43,44]. The exact
methods to fix the values of gpp will be described extensively later in this article.

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

65

This article is organized as follows. In Section 2 the basic theoretical framework is briefly
reviewed. In Section 3 the methods of determination of the values of the model parameters are
outlined. In Section 4 the results for the single beta decays, 2 and 0 decays are given in
terms of decay log f t values, NMEs and decay half-lives. Finally in Section 5 a summary of the
calculations is provided.
2. Outline of the theoretical framework for double-beta decays
In this section a brief outline of the basic formalism of double-beta decays is presented to help
the reader to tie the obtained results with the underlying weak-interaction and nuclear physics.
For a more comprehensive account of the theory the reader is referred to the reviews [24].
2.1. Two-neutrino double-beta decay
The 2 decay is a second-order weak process in the standard model of electroweak interactions. The decay proceeds through a complete set of virtual states in the nucleus intermediate
to the mother and daughter nuclei of the decay. Due to the small momenta involved the decay
transitions are of the allowed GamowTeller type and thus the set of intermediate states consists
of all the 1+ states. The decay starts always from the 0+ ground state of the eveneven mother
nucleus denoted by the initial state, 0+
i , in this work. The final states in the daughter eveneven
+
+
nucleus can be either the ground state 0+
gs or an excited 0 or 2 state. All these states can be
called generically as the final Jf+ = 0+ , 2+ states. The associated 2-decay half-life, t1/2 , can
be written as

2
 (2)  +
1
t1/2 0i Jf+
= G(2) (Jf )M (2) (Jf ) ,
(1)
(2)

where G(2) (Jf ) is an integral over the phase space of the leptonic variables [2]. The nuclear
double GamowTeller matrix element, M (2) (Jf ), can be written as


1+ )1+ |1+ (1+ 
+
 (Jf  m m tm
1
n n tn 0i )
k1
k1 k2
k2
(2)
,
(2)
M (Jf ) =
1 + 2J 2 k k
( 12 Q + Ek1 Mi )/me + 1
1 2

where the transition operators are the usual GamowTeller operators for transitions, Q is
the 2 Q value, Ek is the mass energy of the k-th intermediate state, Mi is the mass energy of
the initial nucleus, and me is the rest-mass energy of the electron. The various transition matrix
elements of (2) are given in Section 2.3 and the overlap factor in (2) is given by

 J k J k

J k2 J k1
Jk1 Jk2 =
Xpn 2 X pn 1 Ypn
(3)
Ypn
pn

and it takes care of the matching of the corresponding states in the two sets of states based on the
initial and final eveneven reference nuclei.
In practical calculations Ek is taken to be the average of the pnQRPA energies for the initial (i)
f
and final (f ) eveneven reference nuclei, i.e. Ek = (Eki + Ek )/2. The energy Ek is further
normalized such that the energy difference E1 Mi corresponds to the experimental mass energy
difference of the intermediate and initial nuclei plus the measured excitation energy of the first
1+ state in the intermediate nucleus.

66

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

2.2. Neutrinoless double-beta decay to 0+ states

In the present work it is assumed that the 0 decay proceeds dominantly via the exchange
of light Majorana neutrinos and that the final states have the multipolarity 0+ . In this case the
decay half-life can be written as


1

 (0)  +
 2 
m [eV] 2 ,
= G(0) M (0)
(4)
t1/2 0i 0+
f
where the effective neutrino mass (given above in units of eV) is defined as

2
m  =
CP
j mj |Uej | .

(5)

The coefficients CP
j are the Majorana CP phases and Uej are the components of the electron
row of the neutrino-mixing matrix. The value of the phase-space integral G(0) should always
be calculated for the value gA = 1.25 of the axial-vector coupling constant due to the specific

definition of the NME M (0) given below. The values of G(0) for the discussed nuclei and
transitions are given later in Section 4.5. The nuclear matrix element of (4) can be written as a
linear combination of three terms, i.e.

 2
 2
gA
gV

(0)
(0)
(0)
M
,
(6)

M
+
M
M (0) =
F
T
GT
b
gA
gA
b = 1.25 is the bare-nucleon value of the axial-vector coupling constant.
where gA
The exchange of a light Majorana neutrino generates a neutrino potential that is useful to
expand in multipoles to facilitate a pnQRPA calculation of the decay rate. Due to the high momentum of the exchanged neutrino (of the order of hundred MeV/c) all the multipoles contribute
to the decay rate and thus it is relevant to sum over all multipolarities J of the virtual states of
the intermediate nucleus. Hence, the double Fermi and GamowTeller nuclear matrix elements
are defined through
  
 
(0)
 +

MF =
0+
hF (rmn , Ea )tm
tn 0i , rmn = |rm rn |,
(7)
f
(0)
MGT

mn

mn

  
 
 +

0+
=
hGT (rmn , Ea )( m n )tm
tn 0 i ,
f

(8)

where the summation over a kJ in Eqs. (7) and (8) runs over all the states of the intermediate
oddodd nucleus, k denoting the k-th state of multipolarity J . The quantity rmn is the relative
distance between the two decaying neutrons labeled m and n. The ground state of the initial even
+
even nucleus is denoted, as before, by 0+
i and the ground state or the excited 0 state of the final
+
eveneven nucleus is denoted by 0f . The quantity Ea is the mass energy of the nuclear state a
(0)

of the intermediate nucleus. The tensor matrix element MT can be dropped as its magnitude is
quite small [25,31,32]. The neutrino potentials hK (rmn , Ea ), K = F, GT, are given by

2
qhK (q 2 )
j0 (qrmn ),
(9)
hK (rmn , Ea ) = RA dq

q + Ea (Mi + Ef )/2
where RA = 1.2A1/3 fm is the nuclear radius, Mi is the ground-state mass energy of the initial
nucleus, Ef the (ground-state or excited-state) mass energy of the final nucleus and j0 is the

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

67

spherical Bessel function. The term hK (q 2 ) in (9) includes the contributions arising from the
induced currents and the finite nucleon size [45].
Again, in practical calculations the lowest pnQRPA energy, Emin , is normalized in such a
way that the energy difference Emin (Mi + Ef )/2 corresponds to the experimentally determined mass energy difference Einterm (Mi + Ef )/2 where Einterm is the mass energy of the
intermediate nucleus
The nuclear matrix elements can be written in the pnQRPA framework as



(0)
MK =
(1)jn +jp +J +J 2J  + 1
J ,k1 ,k2 ,J  pp  nn




jp jn J    
pp : J OK nn : J 

jn jp J 
     
    + 
 c  cn J J J J  c cn 0 ,
0+
p
k1
k1 k2
k2
f
i
p
J
J


(10)

where k1 and k2 label the different pnQRPA solutions for a given multipole J . The operators
OK inside the two-particle matrix element derive from (7) and (8) and they can be written as
OF = hF (r, Ea ),

OGT = hGT (r, Ea ) 1 2 ,

r = |r1 r2 |,

(11)

where Ea is the average of the energies of the corresponding states a of the two pnQRPA calculations based on the initial and final nuclei of the decay.
2.3. Basic transition densities
The pnQRPA states of the intermediate nucleus are written as

 J k  

 
Jk
J M =
Xpn ap an J M Ypn
ap an J M |QRPA,
k

(12)

pn

where |QRPA is the QRPA vacuum. The operator ap (an ) creates a proton (neutron) quasiparticle in the orbital p (n). The sum runs over all protonneutron configurations in the chosen
+
valence space. In the case 0+
f = 0gs the form (12) of the pnQRPA state leads to the transition
densities
 +    



0f  cp cn J Jk1 = 2J + 1 vp u n X pJ  nk 1 + u p vn YpJ nk 1 ,
(13)
    + 


J k2
J k2
Jk2  cp cn J 0i = 2J + 1 up vn Xpn
,
(14)
+ vp un Ypn
where v (v)
and u (u)
correspond to the BCS occupation and unoccupation amplitudes of the
initial (final) eveneven nucleus. The amplitudes X and Y (X and Y ) come from the pnQRPA
calculation starting from the initial (final) nucleus of the double-beta decay. In the case 0+
f =
+
+
01 02-ph , i.e. the final state is a two-phonon-like state, the transition density (13) is replaced
by an other one given later in this section. The overlap factor in (10) is given in (3).
The multiple-commutator model (MCM) [12,46] is designed to connect excited states of an
eveneven reference nucleus to states of the neighboring oddodd nucleus. The states of the
oddodd nucleus are given by the pnQRPA in the form (12). The excited states of the eveneven
nucleus are generated by the (charge conserving) quasiparticle random-phase approximation (ccQRPA) described in detail in [47]. Here the symmetrized form of the phonon amplitudes is

68

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Fig. 1. Experimental low-energy spectra of 104 Pd and 110 Cd. The numbers to the right of the energy levels are excitation
energies in units of MeV.

adopted contrary to Ref. [47] so that the first excited 2+ state can be written as a ccQRPA phonon
in the form
 2+ 
 +



 

2+ 
2 M = Q 2+ , M |QRPA =
Zab1 aa ab 2M Wab1 aa ab 2M |QRPA,
(15)
1
1
ab

where the amplitudes Z and W are obtained by solving the ccQRPA equations of motion [47].
Above |QRPA denotes the QRPA vacuum.
From the above 2+ phonons (15) one can build ideal two-phonon J + states of the form
 +

1   +   + 
J
2-ph = Q 21 Q 21 J =0,2,4 |QRPA.
2

(16)

An ideal two-phonon triplet consists of partner states J = 0+ , 2+ , 4+ that are degenerate in

energy, and exactly at an energy twice the excitation energy of the 2+
1 state. In practice this
degeneracy is always lifted by the residual interaction between the one- and two-phonon states
[48]. In nuclei there are many candidates for two-phonon states [48,49] and examples of such
nuclei are 104 Pd and 110 Cd which are double-beta-decay daughter nuclei of 104 Ru and 110 Pd.
The low-energy spectra of 104 Pd and 110 Cd are depicted in Fig. 1. In these cases the paradigm of
a two-phonon triplet seems to work fine in terms of the small splitting of the triplet. However, the
centroids of the triplets are slightly higher than twice the excitation energy of the 2+
1 state. Based
on these considerations the wave functions of the triplets of states in these nuclei are presumed
to be reasonably well described by the ansatz wave function (16). Some further examples will be
discussed in Section 4.1.
Having defined the form of the one-phonon excitation (15) and the structure of the pnQRPA
state (12) one can connect them by the MCM procedure [12,46]. The corresponding general
expression for the decay amplitude can be written as
 +    
Ik  cp cn L Jk1

= 2 (2I + 1)(2L + 1)(2J + 1)(1)I +L+J

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

69




Jk
Jk

I+
I+ 
J I L
u p u n X p11n Z pk p1 vp vn Yp1 1n W pk p1
jp jn jp1
p1



Jk
Jk

I+
I+ 
J I L
+
(1)I +jn +jn1 vp vn X p 1n1 Z nk n1 u p u n Yp n11 W nkn1
jn jp jn1

(17)

n1

instead of the expression (13) for the ground-state transition. This decay amplitude has been used
in (2) to evaluate the transition amplitude
     + 
 
 + 
1   
 +
 c  cn 1 .
21 
1k1 =
p  n 2+
(18)
m tm
1
p
1 k1
3 p n
m
After defining the form of the two-phonon excitation (16) the MCM procedure
derive the following general expression for the transition density
 +    
I2-ph  cp cn L Jk1
40 
= (2I + 1)(2L + 1)(2J + 1)(1)J +L+1
2

jp jp1
+
+
+
+



2
2
2
2
j  jn1
u p vn X pJ 1 nk11 Z p1 p1 Z n1n1 + vp u n YpJ1 nk11 W p1p1 W n1n1

n
p1 n1
L J

can be used to

2
2

(19)

instead of the expression (13) for the 0 ground-state transition. In the case of the 2 decay
this transition density has been used to compute the amplitude
 
 

 + 
  
1   
 +
1k1 =
I2-ph 
p  n I2+-ph  cp  cn 1 1+
(20)
m tm
k1 .
3 p n
m
3. Model spaces and parameters
The calculations of this work were performed in reasonably large valence spaces including
several single-particle orbitals below and above the proton and neutron Fermi surfaces. The
single-particle orbitals of the present calculations belong to two categories. Firstly, most of the
orbitals are bound, i.e. their single-particle energies are negative. Secondly, there are positiveenergy resonant states in the continuum, their energies determined by the angular-momentum
and Coulomb barriers [47]. The size of the model space is limited from above by the appearance of large positive energies of the computed single-particle resonances in the positive-energy
continuum. This is why for some model spaces the 0h9/2 orbital is missing in the calculations
thus introducing a small violation of the Ikeda 3(N Z) sum rule. However, the 0h9/2 orbital
is quite far in energy from the active valence space so that its effect on the double-beta-decay
half-lives can be neglected. Having said this, the adopted model spaces in this work are the following: for the mass A = 70, 86 nuclei the single-particle model space 0f1p0g1d2s0h11/2
was used and for the masses A = 94, 104 the space 0f1p0g1d2s0h was adopted, both for
protons and neutrons. In the case of the A = 110 nuclei the proton single-particle space was
chosen to be 0f1p0g1d2s0h11/2 and the one for neutrons was 0f1p0g1d2s0h2p1f.
For the A = 124 nuclei both the proton and neutron single-particle spaces consisted of the
0f1p0g1d2s0h2p1f orbitals. The asymmetry of the proton and neutron models spaces
for the A = 110 nuclei stems from the fact that the proton orbitals are pushed up by the Coulomb

70

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

term and thus their energies enter the positive-energy continuum more easily than the ones for
neutrons.
At this point it should be noted that the values of the single-particle energies close to the
proton and neutron Fermi surfaces play a role in many-body calculations since they determine
the occupancies of the single-particle orbitals in the active valence space. This effect is well
known in many-body calculations based on the BCS approach [38,39,41,43,47] and in other type
of calculations like the interacting shell-model [40].
The single-particle energies of the adopted model spaces were generated by the use of a
spherical Coulomb-corrected WoodsSaxon (WS) potential with a standard parametrization [50],
optimized for nuclei near the line of beta stability. The resulting single-particle energies are given
in Tables 1 and 2 for neutrons and protons respectively. Only the relevant orbitals close to the
neutron and proton Fermi surfaces are listed. The resulting WS bases were used for all nuclei
discussed in this work.
Modifications of the WS energies were done for all nuclei to allow a better reproduction of
the spectra of their odd-A neighbors. These bases are the adjusted bases, denoted from here
on as Adj. The changes of the neutron single-particle energies for the A = 70110 nuclei are
indicated in Table 1 and the changes of the proton energies are given in Table 2. Only the changed
values of energies are listed in the rows referring to the adjusted basis (Adj). The adjusted singleparticle energies of 124 Sn and 124 Te were taken from Table 8 of Ref. [15].
The Bonn-A G-matrix has been used as the starting point and it has been renormalized in
the standard way [9,12]: The quasiparticles are treated in the BCS formalism and the pairing
matrix elements are scaled by a common factor, separately for protons and neutrons. In practice
these factors are fitted such that the lowest quasiparticle energies obtained from the BCS match
the experimental pairing gaps for protons and neutrons respectively. The experimental excitation
energies of the low-lying states of the proton- and neutron-odd nuclei, adjacent to the eveneven
reference nuclei of this work, are compared with the relative single-quasiparticle energies of the
BCS in Tables 3 and 4 for the neutron-odd and proton-odd nuclei respectively. The comparisons
for the odd A = 125 nuclei have been done in Ref. [15] and the values of the experimental and
computed quasiparticle energies can be seen in Table 9 of that reference.
It should be noted that a pure single-quasiparticle structure has been assumed for the experimental states. In most of the listed cases this may be a valid assumption but for some states
the mixing with the three-quasiparticle degrees of freedom could be expected. In particular, for
105 Rh the 7/2+ ground state and for 105 Ag and 111 Ag the first excited 7/2+ states are not describable as one-quasiparticle states and most likely they are three-quasiparticle states so that
their energies are not given in Table 4. Due to the uncertainties in the three-quasiparticle contributions the BCS quasiparticle energies were adjusted only very qualitatively. In fact, the final
aim of these rough adjustments was to see how the resulting increased densities of single-particle
states at the proton and neutron Fermi surfaces influence the final observables of the calculations,
i.e. the beta-decay and -decay rates. This also helps in placing some kind of error estimates
for the 0 NMEs and half-lives. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the adjustments done
in this way may produce rather strong differences in spinorbit splittings between two adjacent
eveneven nuclei. This might be considered either as an artifact of the procedure or as some kind
of effective way to take account of sudden changes of nuclear deformation along isobaric chains
of nuclei.
The particlehole and particleparticle parts of the protonneutron two-body interaction are
separately scaled by the particlehole parameter gph and particleparticle parameter gpp [9]. The
particlehole parameter affects the position of the GamowTeller giant resonance (GTGR) and

Table 1
Changes made to the WoodsSaxon energies (WS) of neutrons in the adjusted basis (Adj) for the nuclei listed in column one and for the single-particle orbitals listed in columns
311. All the energies are given in MeV.
Nucleus

Basis

Neutron orbital
1p1/2

1p3/2

2s1/2

1d3/2

1d5/2

0g7/2

0g9/2

0h9/2

0h11/2

WS

8.877

10.694

1.526

0.026

2.444

1.243

5.970

2.882

70 Ge

WS
Adj

10.116

12.017

2.275

0.743

3.463

0.215

7.323
8.60

1.733

86 Kr

WS
Adj

11.564

13.161

3.533
4.50

2.430

4.972

2.683

9.008

0.582

86 Sr

WS
Adj

12.663
10.20

14.310
11.20

4.336

3.243

5.933

3.668

10.174

1.627

94 Zr

WS

13.252

14.770

4.946

4.041

6.594

4.863

10.845

5.122

2.589

94 Mo

WS
Adj

14.295

15.853

5.758

4.864
4.10

7.527
6.90

5.816

11.940

4.408

3.587
4.50

104 Ru

WS
Adj

14.664

16.070

6.270
5.00

5.576

8.036
6.40

6.871
5.05

12.381

2.965

4.387
4.90

104 Pd

WS
Adj

15.637

17.074

7.060
6.00

6.377

8.920
7.50

7.773
6.30

13.393

2.241

5.322
5.80

110 Pd

WS
Adj

15.255

16.594

6.879
7.80

6.294

8.675
8.10

7.794
8.60

13.027

1.880

5.199
5.80

110 Cd

WS
Adj

16.188

17.554

7.650
8.60

7.075

9.527
9.00

8.665
9.50

13.993

1.158

6.095
6.70

124 Sn

WS
Adj

16.229

17.424

7.983
7.37

7.611
8.05

9.796

9.458

14.102

0.231
2.83

6.648
8.74

124 Te

WS
Adj

17.078

18.294

8.704
9.08

8.342
8.77

10.580
10.32

10.260
10.41

14.976

0.924
3.25

7.465
9.49

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

70 Zn

71

72

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Table 2
Changes made to the WoodsSaxon energies (WS) of protons in the adjusted basis (Adj) for the nuclei listed in column
one and for the single-particle orbitals listed in columns 310. All the energies are given in MeV.
Nucleus

Basis

Proton orbital
1p1/2

1p3/2

0f5/2

2s1/2

1d3/2

1d5/2

0g7/2

0g9/2

70 Zn

WS
Adj

5.491

7.758

6.542

2.520

4.181

0.974

4.942

3.732
5.50

70 Ge

WS
Adj

3.563

5.685

4.529

3.781

5.512

2.608

6.616

1.748
3.30

86 Kr

WS

8.292

10.225

9.975

0.520

1.676

1.483

0.794

6.898

86 Sr

WS

6.499

8.444

8.175

1.932

3.104

0.030

2.410

5.136

94 Zr

WS

8.542

10.337

10.441

0.269

1.210

1.836

0.126

7.278

94 Mo

WS

6.836

8.661

8.734

1.657

2.617

0.415

1.428

5.606

104 Ru

WS
Adj

9.521

11.193

11.664

0.673

0.121

2.916

1.806

8.415
9.90

104 Pd

WS
Adj

7.915

9.592

10.054

0.693

1.409

1.523

0.320

6.841
8.30

110 Pd

WS
Adj

10.330

11.937

12.593

1.457

0.885

3.772

2.965

9.303
10.50

110 Cd

WS

8.735

10.382

11.035

0.107

0.478

2.327

1.525

7.779

124 Sn

WS
Adj

12.418

13.887

14.899

3.467
4.87

3.183
4.58

5.960
5.98

5.781
6.56

11.535
9.15

124 Te

WS
Adj

10.980

12.433

13.446

2.230
4.86

1.908
4.77

4.596
5.82

4.408
5.61

10.117

its value was fixed roughly by the available systematics [47] on the location of the giant state.
While it is well known that the position of the GTGR is rather sensitive to the strength of the
particlehole interaction, the amount of low-lying strength is rather sensitive to correlations that
go beyond the pnQRPA approach. Nevertheless, the value of gph still affects to some extent the
low-lying GamowTeller strength distribution that is relevant for the value of the 2 NME.
Through this the effects of gph are mediated also to the final values of the 0 NMEs. The
computed GT strength distributions in the presently discussed intermediate nuclei are given in
Section 4.2.
After fixing the value of the particlehole parameter one needs to access in some way the
physical values of the particleparticle parameter gpp of the protonneutron two-body interaction. Typically this has been done by fitting the value of gpp in such a way that the experimental
2 half-lives are reproduced in the interval gA = 1.001.25 of the axial-vector coupling constant [3033,51] where gA = 1.00 corresponds to the quenched value and gA = 1.25 to the
bare-nucleon value of gA . The experimental error and the uncertainty in the value of gA then
induce an interval of acceptable values of gpp , the minimum value of gpp related to gA = 1.00
and the maximum value to gA = 1.25. This is because the magnitude of the calculated 2
NME, M (2) , decreases with increasing value of gpp in a pnQRPA calculation [79] and this

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

73

Table 3
Comparison of the experimental and BCS-calculated neutron quasiparticle energies for the nuclei listed in column one
and for the single-particle orbitals listed in columns 310. All the energies are given in MeV. Comparisons for the
neutron-odd A = 125 nuclei have been done in Table 9 of Ref. [15].
Nucleus

Source

Neutron orbital
1p1/2

1p3/2

2s1/2

1d3/2

1d5/2

0g7/2

0g9/2

0h11/2

71 Zn

Exp
WS

0.000
0.000

?
1.746

0.157
0.110

71 Ge

Exp
WS
Adj

0.000
0.000
0.000

0.500
1.110
0.854

0.198
1.052
0.328

87 Kr

Exp
WS
Adj

?
3.160
3.545

?
4.756
5.142

0.532
1.439
0.472

0.000
0.000
0.000

?
2.289
2.289

?
0.603
0.989

87 Sr

Exp
WS
Adj

0.388
2.219
0.369

0.873
3.752
1.079

?
3.484
3.269

1.229
1.950
1.754

?
4.332
4.075

0.000
0.000
0.000

95 Zr

Exp
WS

0.954
0.881

?
1.821

0.000
0.000

?
0.971

?
3.137

95 Mo

Exp
WS
Adj

0.821
1.359
0.862

?
2.313
2.511

0.000
0.000
0.000

0.766
1.352
0.863

1.938
3.470
2.056

105 Ru

Exp
WS
Adj

0.159
0.057
0.093

0.000
0.539
0.000

0.021
0.337
0.065

0.230
0.000
0.273

0.207
1.509
0.136

105 Pd

Exp
WS
Adj

?
0.285
0.284

0.281
0.918
0.196

0.000
0.105
0.000

0.306
0.000
0.226

0.489
1.821
0.442

111 Pd

Exp
WS
Adj

0.072
0.000
0.000

?
0.158
0.414

0.000
0.782
0.158

?
0.225
0.452

0.172
0.848
0.596

111 Cd

Exp
WS
Adj

0.000
0.040
0.000

0.342
0.394
0.787

0.246
0.452
0.070

0.417
0.000
0.286

0.396
1.140
0.944

magnitude is compared with the magnitude of the experimental NME, M (2) (exp) (gA )2
[see Eq. (1)], deduced from the experimental 2 half-life.
For the presently discussed nuclei there are no experimental data for the 2 half-lives
corresponding to ground-state transitions. Then a conservative upper limit for gpp is obtained
by requiring the computed value of the ground-state-to-ground-state 2 NME to go to zero,
M (2) 0, leading to infinite 2 half-life. This corresponds to the minimum magnitude of the
NME and thus to the maximum value of gpp and hence to the value gA = 1.25 of the axial-vector
coupling constant. All the deduced upper limits of gpp are summarized in Table 5. The decay of
94 Zr is a special case since the associated NME has a minimum value for g = 1.09 but never
pp
reaches zero. In this case then the value gpp = 1.09 is adopted as the maximum value of gpp

74

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Table 4
Comparison of the experimental and BCS-calculated proton quasiparticle energies for the nuclei listed in column one and
for the single-particle orbitals listed in columns 36. All the energies are given in MeV. Comparisons for the proton-odd
A = 125 nuclei have been done in Table 9 of Ref. [15].
Nucleus

Source

Proton orbital
1p1/2

1p3/2

0f5/2

0g9/2

71 Ga

Exp
WS
Adj

0.390
1.729
1.792

0.000
0.000
0.000

0.487
0.639
0.745

1.495
3.255
1.615

71 As

Exp
WS
Adj

?
0.949
1.111

?
0.000
0.000

0.000
0.082
0.295

1.001
2.394
1.106

87 Rb

Exp
WS

0.845
0.437

0.000
0.238

0.403
0.000

?
1.434

87 Y

Exp
WS

0.000
0.000

0.980
0.637

0.793
0.420

0.381
0.554

95 Nb

Exp
WS

0.236
0.000

?
1.162

?
1.274

0.000
0.137

95 Tc

Exp
WS

0.039
0.373

0.646
1.607

0.667
1.798

0.000
0.000

105 Rh

Exp
WS
Adj

0.130
0.646
0.299

0.392
1.830
0.971

?
2.287
1.433

0.149
0.000
0.000

105 Ag

Exp
WS
Adj

0.000
0.822
0.131

0.347
2.159
1.131

?
2.711
1.580

0.053
0.000
0.000

111 In

Exp
WS

0.536
0.883

0.803
2.338

?
3.045

0.000
0.000

111 Ag

Exp
WS
Adj

0.000
0.807
0.221

0.290
2.097
1.232

?
2.830
1.871

0.130
0.000
0.000

and the associated minimum values of the NMEs in the two adopted bases are given in the last
column of Table 5 along with the deduced upper limits of gpp . In Table 5 the first column gives
the mother nucleus, the second column the source of the single-particle energies, the third the
fitted values of the particlehole parameter of the ccQRPA and the fourth column the values of
the particlehole parameter of the pnQRPA extracted from the fit to the excitation energy of the
GTGR. The fifth column lists the minimum values of gpp and in the parenthesis the source of
derivation of this value is given. Column six of the table lists the values of the 2 NMEs that
correspond to the minimum values of gpp .
The minimum values of gpp are obtained either by fitting roughly the experimental log f t
+
70
104 Ru, 110 Pd) or from a reasonable
value of an allowed transition 1+
1 0gs (decays of Zn,
conservative estimate (decays of 94 Zr, 86 Kr and 124 Sn). As discussed earlier in each case the
minimum value of gpp corresponds to gA = 1.00. The reasonable conservative estimate refers to

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

75

Table 5
Values of the model parameters adopted for the double-beta decays discussed in this article. The first column gives the
mother nucleus, the second the source of the single-particle energies, the third the value of the particlehole parameter
of the ccQRPA (determined from the experimental location of the 2+
1 state in the -decay daughter nucleus) and the
fourth the value of the particlehole parameter of the pnQRPA. The fifth and sixth columns list the minimum values of
the parameter gpp of the pnQRPA (with their sources in parenthesis) and the resulting value of the 2 NME. The last
column lists the maximum values of gpp defined by the zero of the 2 NME. For more information see the text.
Nucleus

Basis

gph (2+ )

gph

min (source)
gpp

min )
M (2) (gpp

max (M (2) 0.00)

gpp

70 Zn

WS
Adj

0.746
0.667

1.10
1.10

0.91 (log f t)
0.93 (log f t)

0.447
0.509

1.086
1.084

86 Kr

WS
Adj

0.813
0.738

1.00
1.00

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.110
0.127

1.03
0.97

94 Zr

WS
Adj

0.782
0.750

1.00
1.00

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.373
0.347

1.09 (M (2) = 0.270)

1.09 (M (2) = 0.170)

104 Ru

WS
Adj

0.675
0.581

1.10
1.00

1.00 (log f t)
1.23 (log f t)

0.474
0.282

1.069
1.272

110 Pd

WS
Adj

0.745
0.745

1.10
1.10

1.05 (log f t)
0.93 (log f t)

0.245
0.271

1.097
1.060

124 Sn

WS
Adj

0.730
0.540

1.00
1.00

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.80 (ad hoc)

0.110
0.192

0.92
0.907

situations where there are no experimental observables by which to estimate the minimum value
of gpp . In these cases (denoted by ad hoc in Table 5) a conservative lower limit gpp = 0.80
has been arbitrarily chosen. The minimum values of gpp correspond to the physically allowed
maximum values of the NMEs due to the earlier mentioned smooth increase in the magnitude
of the ground-state-to-ground-state NMEs of (2) with decreasing value of gpp in a pnQRPA
calculation.
Concerning the ccQRPA calculation, the value of the particlehole parameter gph (2+ ) of the
effective Hamiltonian [12] is determined by the energy of the first 2+ state, 2+
1 , in the -decay
daughter nucleus. The corresponding wave function is given in (15). In the present calculations
+
the experimental energy of the 2+
1 state is reproduced by varying the magnitude of gph (2 ), and
+
the resulting fitted values of gph (2 ) are listed in column three of Table 5. A striking difference
can be seen between the values of the two gph parameters in Table 5. The difference stems from
the fact that in the ccQRPA the 2+
1 state of an eveneven nucleus collects easily collectivity [47]
and thus even a modest gph (2+ ) strength is enough to reproduce the experimental energy of this
state. Contrary to this the value of the gph parameter of the pnQRPA relates to the location of the
1+ GTGR in an oddodd nucleus and subsequently has a totally different origin. Furthermore, no
such strong collectivity of the 1+ states in oddodd nuclei as the one of 2+ states in eveneven
nuclei has been observed in general.
4. Results and discussion
In this section the discussion is divided in four parts: first the properties of the single beta
decays are discussed since they determine the minimum values of the gpp parameters for part of
the double-beta decays. At the same time comparisons of the computed log f t values with the
available data serve as checks of the plausibility of the present calculations. Second, the 2

76

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Fig. 2. Experimental low-energy spectra of 70 Ge, 94 Mo and 124 Te. The numbers to the right of the energy levels are
excitation energies in units of MeV.

decays are discussed and estimates of the associated decay half-lives are derived. Third, the
values of the 0 NMEs are quoted and analyzed in terms of the magnitude of the axial-vector
coupling constant gA and in terms of the adopted forms of the nucleonnucleon short-range
correlations. Finally, the adopted values of the 0 NMEs are quoted and the corresponding
decay half-lives are given in a form that enables easy extraction of the half-life for any neutrino
mass of the readers choice.
4.1. Single beta decays
The available data on -decay rates allow for studies of the lateral beta-decay feedings of
the 0+ ground states and low-lying excited 0+ , 2+ and 4+ states in the final nuclei of double-beta
decays considered in this article. These states are shown in Figs. 1 and 2. From these figures one
sees that for 94 Mo, 104 Pd, 110 Cd and 124 Te the picture of a two-phonon triplet works rather well so
that the wave functions of the triplets of states in these nuclei are presumed to be reasonably well
described by the ansatz wave function (16). For 70 Ge the two-phonon picture is not realized and
that is why only the 2+
1 state is treated in the MCM calculation in the subsequent determination
of the theoretical log f t values of the lateral decay feeding. For 86 Sr only the ground state

and the 2+
1 state are accessible due to the small decay Q value. Also it has to be pointed out
+
that here the only 01 states accessible via 0-decay transitions are the ones in 110 Cd and 124 Te
due to the too small 0 Q values of all the other nuclei considered in this work.
In Table 6 the calculated log f t values, based on the above-described pnQRPA and MCM
wave functions, have been quoted in columns six and seven. They are calculated for gA = 1.00
and hence correspond to the minimum values of the gpp parameter of the pnQRPA. Column
five lists the corresponding experimental log f t values. The transitions concern or + /EC
decays from the J ground states of the mother nuclei (listed in column three) to the ground
or excited states of the daughter nuclei (listed in column four). The excited states are denoted
+
+
+
+
+
as 0+
1 (the first excited 0 state) or 21 and 22 (the first and second 2 states) or 41 (the first
+
+
excited 4 state). The values of the particlehole parameter gph (2 ) of the ccQRPA (see Table 5)

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

77

Table 6
Experimental and calculated log f t values (columns 57) for allowed and first-forbidden and + EC (indicated in
column two) transitions between the nuclei indicated in the first column. The spin-parities of the initial (ground) states
are indicated in the third column and column four lists the spin-parities of the final states of the transitions.
Transition

Mode

Ji

Jf

70 Ga 70 Ge

1+

0+
gs
2+
1

5.1
6.0

5.11
5.53

5.10
5.89

70 Ga 70 Zn

+ /EC

1+

0+
gs

5.0

4.07

4.05

86 Rb 86 Sr

0+
gs
2+
1

9.4
7.9

9.13
7.17

9.31
7.20

86 Rb 86 Kr

+ /EC

0+
gs

9.8

94 Nb 94 Mo

3+

2+
1
4+
1

6.5
7.4

6.79
6.63

6.63
6.95

2+
2

log f t
Exp.

WS basis

12.3

Adj basis

13.5

6.8

6.25

6.47

104 Rh 104 Pd

1+

0+
gs
2+
1
0+
1
2+
2

4.5
5.8
7.4
8.7

4.32
6.50
5.08
6.85

4.33
6.04
5.95
8.43

104 Rh 104 Ru

+ /EC

1+

0+
gs
2+
1
0+
1

4.4
5.4
5.1

3.73
5.35
4.63

3.95
5.50
4.87

110 Ag 110 Cd

1+

0+
gs
2+
1

4.7
5.5

4.84
5.46

4.72
5.57

0+
1
2+
2

6.8
7.2

5.02
7.52

5.22
7.28

110 Ag 110 Pd

+ /EC

1+

0+
gs

4.1

3.72

3.79

124 Sb 124 Te

2+
1

10.3

7.18

7.73

10.7
10.2

8.01
8.25

8.43
8.50

4+
1
2+
2

are obtained by fitting the experimental energy of the first 2+ state in the beta-decay daughter
nuclei. For the transitions 104 Rh 104 Ru the values of the particlehole parameters in 104 Ru are
gph (2+ ) = 0.665 (WS) and gph (2+ ) = 0.555 (Adj). The resulting wave function of the 2+
1 state
is then used to construct the two-phonon states (16) and the related transition amplitudes in the
MCM formalism.
All the transitions considered in Table 6 pertain to allowed or first-forbidden decays. For the
allowed decays of this work the log f t value is defined as [47]


6147
,
(21)
log f t = log(f0 t1/2 ) = log
BGT + BF

78

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

where the reduced GamowTeller and Fermi transition probabilities are defined as
BGT =

2
 +   + 2
gA
J  t Ji ,
2Ji + 1 f

BF =

2
 +   + 2
gV
J 1t Ji
2Ji + 1 f

(22)

for the initial Ji+ and final Jf+ states. It should be noted that for the Fermi transitions we always
have Jf = Ji . For the first-forbidden unique (FFU) transitions 2 0+ (the transition 86 Rb
86 Sr being the unique example in this work) we can define [47]


2
gA
6147
, B1u =
M21u ,
(23)
log f t = log(f1u t1/2 ) = log 1
2J
+
1
B
i
1u
12
where
 
me c2  + 
M1u =
0 [ r]2 t 2
4

(24)

for the initial 2 and final 0+ states. For the first-forbidden non-unique transitions Ji Jf+ ,
|Ji Jf |  1, of this work we can define [47]


6147
(25)
log f t = log(f0 t1/2 ) = log f0 () ,
S1
()

where the shape function S1 can be inferred from [12].

Interesting conclusions can be drawn based on Table 6: it is well visible that the adjustments
in the single-particle energies (see Section 3) improve the description of the beta-decay rates,
sometimes considerably. This is a nontrivial consequence of the adjustments since they were
done to improve the quality of the energy spectra of the odd-A nuclei adjacent to the eveneven
reference nuclei, a procedure having little to do with beta decays between an oddodd and an
eveneven nucleus in the region next to the reference nucleus. The computed log f t values for the
decays are mostly in fair agreement with the experimental ones, except for the decay of 124 Sb
where the predicted partial decay rates are clearly too fast. In all the other nuclei the decay
to the 2+
1 one-ccQRPA-phonon state is quite well described by the MCM in the adjusted basis.
Also the decays to the 2+
2 members of the two-phonon triplets are reasonably well reproduced
by the adjusted-basis MCM calculations. Computed decay rates to the 0+
1 members of the
two-phonon triplets are systematically too fast in both bases. This could have some consequences
110 Cd.
for the double-beta-decay feeding of the 0+
1 state in
The calculation of the + /EC decay of 70 Ga to the ground state of 70 Zn produces too strong a
transition rate as seen in Table 6. This is a typical feature of the pnQRPA calculations as discussed
in [44]. For the + /EC decay of 86 Rb the calculations in both bases produce a far too suppressed
decay rate. This, in turn, could have an effect on the 0 decay rate. For the + /EC decays of
104 Rh and 110 Ag the adjusted basis works reasonably well, a bit better than the WS basis.
4.2. GamowTeller strength distributions in the intermediate nuclei
After fixing the model parameters gph and gpp of the pnQRPA one can calculate the Gamow
Teller strength distributions in the intermediate nuclei of the decays. The GT strength in a
transition from the 0+ ground state of an eveneven nucleus to the m-th 1+ state in the neighboring oddodd nucleus is given by

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

   + 2

0
GT (m) = 1+
m t
gs
 +  +  + 2
GT+ (m) = 1m  t 0gs



strength ,

 +
strength .

79

(26)
(27)

The GT (m) strength corresponds to transitions from the ground state of the -decay parent
nucleus to the intermediate nucleus and the GT+ (m) strength relates to transitions from the
ground state of the -decay daughter nucleus to the intermediate nucleus.
In Table 7 the GT and GT+ strengths are given as summed over energy bins of 2 MeV.
For example, the 70 Ga nucleus is fed by GT from 70 Zn ( parent) and by GT+ from 70 Ge
( daughter). The final column lists the total GT and GT+ strengths. It should be noted here
that the total strengths do not satisfy the Ikeda 3(N Z) sum rule since the involved initial
ground states are not the one and the same ground state as required by the sum rule. In the
table the energy of the first 1+ state in the intermediate nucleus is scaled to zero. Furthermore, the value gA = 1.25 of the axial-vector coupling constant has been used to derive the
strength distributions. As explained before the gpp parameter is connected to the value of gA .
Thus the strength distributions with gA = 1.25 and gA = 1.00 are slightly different. However,
Table 7 gives a good idea how the pnQRPA-computed strengths look like, at least qualitatively.
From Table 7 it is obvious that in the GTGR region the GT strength is redistributed when
going from the WS to the adjusted basis, the adjustment typically increasing the fragmentation of
the strength. For the low-energy 1+ states the redistribution is more gentle. It may be noted that
for 94 Nb the GT strengths are the same for the WS and Adjusted bases since for the involved
parent nucleus 94 Zr actually only the WS basis has been used in the calculations. The total GT+
strength is small but sometimes quite different for the two basis sets used. Also here redistribution
of strength takes place when going from the WS to the adjusted basis.
For 124 Sb one can compare the present results with the ones computed by the use of the
energy-density-functional (EDF) method of [28]. There the sum strengths S+ (GT) = 1.63 and
S (GT) = 40.65 were obtained by the use of the quenching factor (0.74)2 for the Gamow
Teller operator. Adopting the same quenching factor produces the values S+ (GT) = 0.260.38
and S (GT) = 39.6 in the present calculations. The S (GT) strengths of the present and the
EDF calculations agree well but for the S+ (GT) strength the present calculations yield a much
smaller value.
4.3. Two-neutrino double-beta decays
For the double-beta-decaying nuclei of this work not many previous calculations of the 2decay rates exist. In particular the studies of decays to excited final states are scarce. The available
previous calculations have been listed in the last column of Table 8. They are based on the
pnQRPA [15,52], higher-RPA theory [15,21], boson expansion methods [22,53], the single-statedominance hypothesis [54] or the interacting shell model [55].
In Table 8 are given the presently calculated minimum half-lives in years (second last column)
and the corresponding NMEs (third last column) for the 2 decays of the nuclei listed in the
first column. For the ground-state transitions the NME is the maximum NME and it corresponds
min of the g parameter obtained for g = 1.00 and listed in Table 5.
to the minimum value gpp
pp
A
Also given are the spin-parity of the final state (second column), the decay Q values in MeV
(third column) and the corresponding 2 phase-space factor in units of inverse years (fourth
column). The phase-space factor and the corresponding half-life have been calculated for the
value of gA indicated in parenthesis below the value of the phase-space factor. As mentioned

80
Table 7
Calculated strength distributions GT and GT+ in the nuclei listed in the first column of the table. Both the WS and the adjusted bases have been used in the calculations. The
strength distribution is given in bins of 2 MeV width for the value gA = 1.25 of the axial-vector coupling constant. The total summed strengths are given in the last column. The
energies of the first 1+ states in the listed nuclei have been scaled to zero.
Nucl.
70 Ga

Basis
WS

86 Rb

WS
Adj

94 Nb

WS
Adj

104 Rh

WS
Adj

110 Ag

WS
Adj

124 Sb

WS
Adj

Energy interval in MeV

02

24

46

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

2.05
0.05
2.18
0.07

1.90
0.09
1.72
0.09

3.06
1.01
3.16
1.31

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

1.85
0.00
1.75
0.10

3.80
0.38
0.99
0.06

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

1.31
1.00
1.31
0.56

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

68

Total

810

1012

1214

1416

1618

1820

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

1.99
0.08
15.50
0.16

20.70
0.00
7.12
0.00

0.40
0.12
0.47
0.26

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.02

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

30.10
1.35
30.15
1.93

5.14
0.00
7.94
0.34

0.03
0.13
0.03
0.01

0.00
0.04
0.00
0.11

29.26
0.00
0.00
0.01

2.04
0.00
31.44
0.02

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

42.13
0.56
42.15
0.66

0.00
0.13
0.00
0.00

0.79
0.53
0.79
0.61

5.89
0.07
5.89
0.07

2.12
0.01
2.12
0.03

2.52
0.03
2.52
0.02

0.08
0.01
0.08
0.03

29.51
0.00
29.51
0.00

0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01

0.14
0.01
0.14
0.01

42.44
1.80
42.44
1.34

4.78
0.00
2.46
0.03

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.69
0.22
0.00
0.30

2.24
0.37
2.78
1.08

2.56
0.22
4.04
0.51

4.49
0.02
7.18
0.10

0.10
0.00
0.11
0.01

24.37
0.06
6.06
0.11

7.43
0.00
12.59
0.04

2.52
0.01
14.20
0.02

49.24
0.91
49.49
2.21

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

3.94
0.01
3.58
0.01

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00

1.50
0.11
2.05
0.08

2.71
0.07
1.72
0.20

6.80
0.22
6.97
0.00

0.39
0.02
0.52
0.02

9.55
0.05
15.29
0.04

24.34
0.04
21.66
0.04

2.82
0.00
0.01
0.00

0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01

52.07
0.54
51.79
0.40

GT
GT+
GT
GT+

3.18
0.00
3.99
0.09

4.97
0.17
1.53
0.25

5.38
0.06
5.08
0.01

10.15
0.00
4.75
0.06

1.73
0.01
11.01
0.17

46.14
0.18
0.05
0.01

0.16
0.00
29.86
0.06

0.08
0.01
14.84
0.01

0.02
0.04
0.63
0.04

0.09
0.00
0.13
0.01

72.35
0.47
72.31
0.70

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Adj

Mode

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

81

Table 8
Calculated minimum half-lives (the second last column) and the corresponding NMEs (third last column) for the 2
decays of the nuclei listed in the first column. Also given are the spin-parity of the final state (second column), the
decay Q values (third column) and the corresponding 2 phase-space factor (fourth column). The phase space and
the corresponding half-life have been calculated for the value of gA indicated in parenthesis below the value of the
phase-space factor. Column five lists the adopted single-particle bases and the last column the available results of other
works.
Nucleus

Jf

Q (MeV)

G(2) (yr1 )

Basis

70 Zn

0+
gs

1.001

1.24 1022
(gA = 1.00)

WS
Adj

86 Kr

0+
gs

1.256

2+
1

0.179

1.29 1021
(gA = 1.00)
1.38 1032
(gA = 1.00)

0+
gs

1.144

2+
1

0.273

0+
gs

1.299

2+
1

0.743

0+
gs

94 Zr

104 Ru

110 Pd

124 Sn

M (2)

(2)

(2)

t1/2 (min) (yr)

t1/2 (yr) [Ref.]

0.447
0.509

4.0 1022
3.1 1022

(0.2564) 1022 [21]

70 1022 [54]

WS
Adj
WS
Adj

0.110
0.127
0.00170
0.00382

6.4 1022
4.8 1022
2.5 1037
5.0 1036

(22990) 1022 [21]

8.82 1022
(gA = 1.00)
5.81 1030
(gA = 1.25)

WS
Adj
WS
Adj

0.373
0.347
0.0170
0.0155

8.2 1021
9.4 1021
6.0 1032
7.2 1032

(316600) 1021 [21]

3.47 1021
(gA = 1.00)
8.52 1025
(gA = 1.25)

WS
Adj
WS
Adj

0.474
0.282
0.00792
0.00811

1.3 1021
3.6 1021
1.9 1028
1.8 1028

6.4 1021 [54]

2.013

1.50 1019
(gA = 1.00)

WS
Adj

0.245
0.271

1.1 1020
0.91 1020

2+
1

1.355

1.30 1021
(gA = 1.25)

WS
Adj

0.0112
0.00766

0.62 1025
1.3 1025

0+
1

0.540

2+
2

0.537

1.19 1023
(gA = 1.25)
2.36 1026
(gA = 1.25)

WS
Adj
WS
Adj

0.447
0.304
0.00195
0.00240

4.2 1023
9.1 1023
11 1030
7.4 1030

(1.21.8) 1020 [52]

1.6 1020 [22]
1.2 1020 [54]
8.4 1025 [22]
4.4 1025 [54]
1.5 1025 [53]
2400 1023 [54]

0+
gs

2.287

2+
1

1.684

2+
2

0.961

0+
1

0.630

6.26 1019
(gA = 1.00)
2.61 1020
(gA = 1.25)
3.10 1023
(gA = 1.25)
5.49 1023
(gA = 1.25)

WS
Adj
WS
Adj
WS
Adj
WS
Adj

0.110
0.192
0.00890
0.00294
0.00360
0.00294
0.455
0.441

1.3 1020
0.43 1020
4.8 1023
44 1023
2.5 1027
1.4 1027
8.8 1022
9.4 1022

18 1028 [54]
6.2 1028 [53]

38 1030 [54]
0.78 1020 [15]
2.9 1020 [55]
6500 1023 [15]
1.7 1027 [15]
55 1022 [15]

before, for the ground-state transitions gA = 1.00 but usually not for the excited-state transitions
since the NMEs corresponding to excited-state transitions can either increase or decrease as functions of gpp , as shown in Ref. [15]. In fact most of the excited-state transitions are the strongest
for gA = 1.25, mainly because the high value of gA enhances the decay rate since the 2
4 . Column five lists the adopted sets of single-particle enphase-space factor scales as G(2) gA

82

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

ergies used to calculate the NMEs of column six. The last column lists the available results of
other works.
From Table 8 one notices that the results of other calculations do not contradict the lower limits of half-lives obtained in this work, although in some cases they are quite close to the presently
obtained lower limits. For the transitions to excited states no results of other calculations could
be found for the decays of 86 Kr and 94 Zr. The excited states fed by the 2 transitions from
70 Zn, 94 Zr, 104 Ru, 110 Pd and 124 Sn are depicted in Figs. 1 and 2. Concerning the ground-state
decays Table 8 indicates that the presently computed lower limits for the 2 half-lives of 110 Pd
and 124 Sn are of the order of 1020 years whereas for the rest of the nuclei they are in the range
(1.364) 1021 years.
It is worth pointing out that the gpp dependence of the NMEs corresponding to 2 decays
to excited 0+ and 2+ states is rather weak in the MCM formalism [15] so that the increase of
min does not affect the magnitudes of the computed NMEs drasthe magnitude of gpp from gpp
tically. The reason for this difference from the ground-state transitions is seen from the decay
amplitudes (13), (17) and (19). In the case of the ground-state transitions, Eq. (13), the groundstate correlations, mediated by the (backward-going) Y amplitudes, can affect strongly the decay
amplitude through the favorable combination up vn of the BCS amplitudes, as first discussed
in [7]. The magnitudes of the Y amplitudes are always much smaller than the magnitudes of the
(forward-going) X amplitudes due to the small-oscillations nature of the RPA theory [47]. The
magnitudes of the Y amplitudes increase with the increasing value of the gpp parameter and thus
with the increasing ground-state correlations. Hence with favorable BCS occupations the Y term
in (13) can even cancel the X term leading to an infinite 2 half-life. For the decays to the
one-phonon and two-phonon states, Eqs. (17) and (19), the conglomerates of the BCS occupations are unfavorable for the Y amplitude terms, and in addition, the Y terms are of the form
Y 2 or Y 3 for the one-phonon and two-phonon amplitudes respectively, thus further suppressing
the Y terms. Due to these reasons the effect of the increasing ground-state correlations, with the
increasing value of gpp , is weak for the excited-state decays.
For the decays of 110 Pd and 124 Sn to the 2+
1 states the computed lower limits of half-lives
range between (4.8130) 1023 years, where the suppression comes mainly from the very small
NMEs. For the 2+
1 -decays of the other nuclei the predicted half-lives are extremely long, above
1.8 1028 years, the suppression being mostly due to the tiny Q values. For decays to the 0+
1
states the computed range of lower limits of the half-life is (8.891) 1022 years, the suppression
stemming from the smallness of the involved Q values. The decays to the 2+
2 states are heavily
(2)
27
suppressed by the tiny NMEs and small Q values: t1/2 (min) > 1.4 10 years.
From the experimental side the decay transitions of Table 8 are rather scarcely studied and the
few obtained lower limits are not very sensitive. For the decay of 70 Zn a lower limit of 1.3 1016
years was obtained in [56]. For the decay of 86 Kr no experimental data could be found. For 104 Ru
there is a measured lower limit 3.5 1019 years for the decay to the 2+
1 state [57]. For the 2
decays of 94 Zr the measured lower limits are weak, 1.3 1019 years for the 2+
1 transition [58].
For the decays of 110 Pd no recent measurements have been done but for the decays of 124 Sn
some recent measurements could be found, like [59,60]. The following best lower limits for the
combined 2 and 0 decays of 124 Sn were obtained in [60]: 9.1 1020 years (decay to 2+
1 ),
+
+
21
20
1.1 10 years (decay to 01 ) and 9.4 10 years (decay to 22 ). As can be seen, all these limits
are still far from the predicted theoretical ones.

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

83

Table 9
Calculated values of the NMEs of Eq. (6) with the Jastrow (columns 46) and UCOM (columns 79) short-range correlations for the ground-state-to-ground-state 0 decays of the nuclei listed in the first column. The second column
gives the sets of adopted single-particle energies and the third column the values of the axial-vector coupling constant.
Nucleus

Basis

Jastrow

gA
(0)

70 Zn

WS
Adj

86 Kr

WS
Adj

94 Zr

WS
Adj

104 Ru

WS
Adj

110 Pd

WS
Adj

124 Sn

WS
Adj

UCOM

MF

MGT

(0)

M (0)

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.244
0.767
1.167
0.558

3.338
1.260
3.438
1.079

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.182
0.819
1.210
0.898

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

MF

(0)

MGT

(0)

M (0)

2.933
1.751
2.947
1.437

1.467
0.975
1.413
0.789

4.007
1.850
4.180
1.732

3.504
2.474
3.580
2.237

2.689
1.679
2.857
1.670

2.477
2.203
2.603
2.245

1.382
1.008
1.411
1.087

3.305
2.241
3.470
2.229

3.000
2.886
3.124
2.925

1.356
0.934
1.299
0.884

3.752
2.281
3.541
1.774

3.269
2.879
3.098
2.340

1.632
1.192
1.571
1.137

4.598
3.039
4.372
2.517

3.988
3.802
3.804
3.245

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.789
1.617
1.265
1.139

4.448
2.291
1.950
0.478

3.992
3.325
2.057
1.207

2.212
2.028
1.690
1.555

5.738
3.533
3.161
1.630

5.088
4.831
3.104
2.625

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.783
1.691
2.146
1.897

3.886
2.777
4.899
3.232

3.628
3.859
4.508
4.446

2.178
2.080
2.576
2.314

5.085
3.951
6.220
4.488

4.649
5.282
5.630
5.969

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.278
1.073
2.154
1.839

2.759
1.968
4.372
2.775

2.583
2.655
4.177
3.952

1.553
1.339
2.592
2.263

3.607
2.774
5.732
4.064

3.302
3.631
5.327
5.513

4.4. General features of the discussed neutrinoless double-beta decays

In Table 9 are listed the calculated NMEs of Eq. (6) that correspond to 0 decays to
ground states of the final nuclei. The Jastrow-correlated NMEs are listed in columns 46 and
the UCOM-correlated ones in columns 79. The second column lists the origins of the singleparticle energies and the third column gives the values of the axial-vector coupling constant.
From Table 9 one can see that the UCOM correlations have a much softer effect on the NMEs

M (0) than the Jastrow correlations (less reduction from the uncorrelated NMEs), as first pointed
out in [30]. The differences between the results of the WoodsSaxon (WS) and adjusted (Adj)
single-particle energies stem from the differences in the occupancies of the individual orbits
close to the proton and neutron Fermi surfaces. These occupancy effects have been studied in
detail in [41] for the ground-state transitions of a set of more frequently discussed 0 decays.
In the present calculations the differences between the WS- and Adj-based NMEs are large for
104 Ru and 124 Sn, the WS-calculated NMEs being much larger (some 4060%) for 104 Ru and

84

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Fig. 3. Calculated NMEs M (0) for the discussed 0 decays. The upper panel shows the NMEs separately for gA =
1.25 and gA = 1.00, whereas the lower panel displays the NMEs separately for the UCOM and Jastrow short-range
correlations. For 110 Pd and 124 Sn the ground-state (gs) and excited-state (0+
1 ) NMEs are shown separately.

some 5060% smaller for 124 Sn than those of the adjusted basis. For 94 Zr the WS-calculated
NMEs are some 520% larger than the ones calculated in the adjusted basis and for 110 Pd the
NMEs of the adjusted basis are some 1025% larger than the WS-calculated ones. For the rest of
the cases the magnitudes of the NMEs do not depend much on the adopted set of single-particle
energies.

The dependence of the magnitudes of the NMEs M (0) on the value of the axial-vector coupling constant gA is analyzed in the upper panel of Fig. 3. There one can see that only for 70 Zn the
magnitudes of the ground-state NMEs depend drastically on the value of gA . As explained be
fore the gA dependence of the NMEs arises directly from the gA dependence of M (0) in (6) and
indirectly since the values of the particleparticle parameter gpp and gA are related as explained
in Section 3.

In the lower panel of Fig. 3 the magnitudes of the NMEs M (0) are given separately for the
UCOM and Jastrow short-range correlations. There the drastic difference between these two sets
of NMEs for the ground-state decays is highlighted. The effects of the UCOM correlations are
close to the ones obtained in a self-consistent coupled-cluster method [35] and thus only the
UCOM-correlated NMEs are used in the further analyzes pursued in this paper.

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

85

Table 10
Calculated values of the NMEs of Eq. (6) with the Jastrow (columns 46) and UCOM (columns 79) short-range corre110 Cd and 124 Te. The second column gives the sets
lations for the 0 decays of 110 Pd and 124 Sn to the 0+
1 states in
of adopted single-particle energies and the third column the values of the axial-vector coupling constant.
Nucleus
110 Pd

Basis

WS
Adj

124 Sn

WS
Adj

Jastrow

gA

UCOM

(0)
MF

(0)
MGT


M (0)

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

0.309
0.306
0.336
0.331

1.302
1.538
1.161
1.229

1.00
1.25
1.00
1.25

1.709
1.713
1.864
1.858

4.480
4.512
4.606
4.688

(0)
MF

MGT

(0)

M (0)

1.031
1.733
0.958
1.441

0.322
0.319
0.350
0.345

1.340
1.577
1.201
1.268

1.064
1.781
0.993
1.488

3.961
5.608
4.141
5.877

1.778
1.781
1.930
1.924

4.699
4.732
4.816
4.898

4.145
5.872
4.318
6.130

In Table 10 the same information as in Table 9 is given for the 0 decays of 110 Pd and
110 Cd and 124 Te. Here the differences between the results
to the two-phonon 0+
1 states in
of the WoodsSaxon (WS) and adjusted (Adj) bases are rather small, less than 20% for 110 Pd
and less than 5% for 124 Sn. In these cases the effect of the different gA values is considerable but
the effects caused by the different short-range correlations are very small as also well evident in
Fig. 3. These drastically different behaviors of the ground-state decays and excited-state decays
with respect to the influence of the short-range correlations were already pointed out in the studies of Refs. [42] and [43]. In [42,43] it was noticed that the relative reductions by the UCOM
and Jastrow correlations are roughly the same for both types of transition, whereas the absolute
reductions are much less and more uniform for the excited-state transitions. This observation is
confirmed by the present study.

124 Sn

4.5. Final results for the 0 NMEs and decay half-lives



In this section the final values of the calculated NMEs M (0) and the associated predicted
half-lives are summarized. Here only the UCOM-correlated NMEs are considered since they
are expected to be more realistic than the Jastrow-correlated ones [30,35]. The final values of
the NMEs are listed in Table 11 in columns two and three. There the values of the NMEs are
separately given for the two extreme values of gA = 1.00 (quenched) and gA = 1.254 (bare
nucleon) by taking the arithmetic means
1  (0) 
Mk
(28)
M =
N
k

of the NMEs over the different single-particle sets (WS and Adj) used in the calculations. Also
the corresponding standard deviations

1 
(0)  2
M =
M Mk
(29)
N 1
k

are given. In the above expressions N denotes the number of the NMEs.
The presently computed NMEs are compared with the available PHFB NMEs of Ref. [27] in
columns four and five of Table 11, as also with the available interacting-shell-model NMEs of

86

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

Table 11

Mean values and standard deviations of the computed NMEs M (0) for the two extreme values of the axial-vector
coupling constant and for the UCOM short-range correlations (columns two and three). The PHFB results of [27], the
ISM results of [25] and the EDF results of [28] have been included for comparison.
M M(UCOM)

Nucleus

gA = 1.00

gA = 1.25

70 Zn

3.54 0.05

2.36 0.17

86 Kr

3.06 0.09
3.90 0.13
4.10 1.40
5.14 0.69
1.03 0.05

2.91 0.03
3.52 0.39
3.73 1.56
5.63 0.49
1.63 0.21

4.31 1.43
4.23 0.12

4.57 1.33
6.00 0.18

94 Zr
104 Ru
110 Pd (0+ )
gs
110 Pd (0+ )
1
124 Sn (0+ )
gs
124 Sn (0+ )
1

M M [27]
gA = 1.00

gA = 1.254

3.10 0.18

4.45 0.25

5.75 0.45

8.23 0.62

M (ISM)

M (EDF)

gA = 1.25

gA = 1.25

2.10
0.80

4.81

Ref. [25] (column six) and the recently published NMEs computed by using the energy density
functional (EDF) approach in closure approximation [28] (column seven). Here the original re
sults of [27] have been scaled to correspond to the definition of the NME M (0) in (6). As can
be seen the present results and the results of [27] are quite nicely correlated and the NMEs have
roughly the same magnitude in both calculations for the ground-state-to-ground-state decays of
94 Zr and 110 Pd. For 124 Sn the EDF results of [28] are consistent with the present calculations but
the ISM-computed NMEs deviate notably from the presently computed, in particular for the decay to the first excited 0+ state. It may also be pointed out that for 70 Zn and 86 Kr the uncertainties

in M (0) stemming from the use of different bases is quite small whereas for 104 Ru and 124 Sn
(for the ground-state transition) the uncertainties are large. The bases effects on the ground-state
NME of 110 Pd are moderate. For all the excited-state NMEs the uncertainties induced by the use
of different bases are quite modest.
One can further combine the result of (4) with the values of the NMEs listed in Table 11 to
give a useful summary of the computed half-lives in the form
(0)

t1/2 =

C (0)
1024 yr.
(|m |[eV])2

(30)

The computed ranges of the factor C (0) are listed in the second last column of Table 12 and
the effective neutrino mass should be given in units of eV in the above equation. In Table 12
the mother nuclei are listed in the first column, the spin-parities of the final states in the second
column and the calculated values of the NMEs (NMEs of columns two and three of Table 11
combined) with the UCOM short-range correlations in the third column. The phase-space factors
present in (4) are given in column four in units of inverse years. They are calculated for gA = 1.25

as required by the specific definition of the NME M (0) in (6).
In the last column of Table 12 there are listed the values of C (0) emerging from the available numerical results of other works. It can be seen that for the ground-state decays of 94 Zr and
110 Pd the present values of C (0) coincide nicely with those of [27]. For the decays of 124 Sn the
present results and the other two available results [16,20] are roughly compatible. At this point it
should be noted that in [16,20] the computational scheme was based on the relativistic harmonic
confinement model (RHCM) of quarks and the resulting nucleon form factors [6163]. In this
framework a folding of the free nucleon current with the confined quark degrees of freedom was

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

87

Table 12

Calculated values of the NMEs M (0) with the UCOM short-range correlations (third column) and the corresponding
auxiliary factors of Eq. (30) (second last column). The mother nuclei are listed in column one and the spin-parities of the
final states in column two. Also the associated phase-space factors, calculated for gA = 1.25, are given in units of inverse
years in column four. The final column lists available results of other works.
Nucleus

Final state

70 Zn

0+
gs
0+
gs
0+
gs
0+
gs
0+
gs
0+
1
0+
gs
0+
1

86 Kr
94 Zr
104 Ru
110 Pd
124 Sn

G(0) (yr1 )

C (0)

2.95 0.69

2.34 1027

2.98 0.10

6.37 1027

49.1+34.6
16.8

3.71 0.32

6.37 1027

3.91 1.23

1.20 1026

5.38 0.56

5.38 1026

1.33 0.37

1.40 1027

4.44 1.14

1.05 1025

5.12 1.03

2.65 1027

M M(UCOM)

17.7 1.2
+2.3
11.41.7

+6.15
5.452.30
+0.16
0.640.11
+371
404157
+0.39
0.480.18
+8.2
14.44.4

C (0) [Ref.]

+6.7
11.03.5
[27]
+1.24
0.380.12
[27]

0.461.14 [16]
70.2 [20]

done resulting in a nucleonic current that differed from that of the standard formulation [3,64]. In
addition, no short-range correlations were taken into account beyond the RHCM-predicted nucleon form factors. This is why direct comparison of the present results, obtained in the standard
formulation, and the results of Refs. [16,20] is not straightforward.
From Table 12 one observes that the shortest half-lives are expected for the ground-state
decays of 110 Pd and 124 Sn, of the order of 1026 years for |m | = 0.1 eV. For the rest of the
decays at least an order of magnitude longer half-lives are expected, the longest being related to
the decays of 70 Zn and 110 Pd to the ground state and 0+
1 state, respectively.
From the experimental side not much is known about the presently discussed 0-decay
transitions. The only available recent measurement concerns the decay of 124 Sn [65] with the
(0)
half-life limit t1/2 > 2.0 1019 years for the ground-state transition.
5. Summary
In this work the double-beta decays, both 2 and 0, of the nuclei 70 Zn, 86 Kr, 94 Zr,
and 124 Sn are investigated in a fully microscopic pnQRPA + MCM many-body
formalism suitable for description of decay transitions to both the final ground state and excited states. The chosen nuclei are very seldom studied but still have double-beta Q values
above 1.0 MeV. The value of the protonneutron particleparticle interaction constant gpp was
determined by available beta-decay data, zeros of the 2 nuclear matrix elements or by reasonable estimates. Lower limits of the 2-decay half-lives were derived. For the 0 decays
an easy-to-use expression for the half-life estimates is provided. The results for the nuclear matrix elements and decay half-lives were compared with the results of other works where ever
possible.
104 Ru, 110 Pd

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under the Finnish Center of Excellence
Program 20062011 (Nuclear and Accelerator Based Program at JYFL). The contribution of
Dr. Mika Mustonen in drawing the figures of this article is gratefully acknowledged.

88

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

References
[1] A.S. Barabash, Precise half-life values for two-neutrino double- decay, Phys. Rev. C 81 (2010) 035501.
[2] J. Suhonen, O. Civitarese, Weak-interaction and nuclear-structure aspects of nuclear double beta decay, Phys.
Rep. 300 (1998) 123214.
[3] M. Doi, T. Kotani, E. Takasugi, Double beta decay and majorana neutrino, Prog. Theor. Phys. Suppl. 83 (1985)
1175.
[4] A. Faessler, F. imkovic, Double beta decay, J. Phys. G 24 (1998) 21392178.
[5] F.T. Avignone III, S.R. Elliott, J. Engel, Double beta decay, majorana neutrinos, and neutrino mass, Rev. Mod.
Phys. 80 (2008) 481516.
[6] H.V. Klapdor-Kleingrothaus, I.V. Krivosheina, The evidence for the observation of 0 decay: The identification
of 0 events from the full spectra, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 21 (2006) 15471566.
[7] P. Vogel, M.R. Zirnbauer, Suppression of the two-neutrino double-beta decay by nuclear-structure effects, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 57 (1986) 31483151.
[8] O. Civitarese, A. Faessler, T. Tomoda, Suppression of the two-neutrino double decay, Phys. Lett. B 194 (1987)
1114.
[9] J. Suhonen, T. Taigel, A. Faessler, pnQRPA calculation of the + /EC quenching for several neutron-deficient nuclei
in mass regions A = 94110 and A = 146156, Nucl. Phys. A 486 (1988) 91117.
[10] J. Toivanen, J. Suhonen, Renormalized protonneutron QRPA and its application to double beta decay, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 75 (1995) 410413.
[11] J. Toivanen, J. Suhonen, Study of several double-beta-decaying nuclei using the renormalized protonneutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation, Phys. Rev. C 55 (1997) 23142323.
[12] J. Suhonen, Calculation of allowed and first-forbidden beta-decay transitions of oddodd nuclei, Nucl. Phys. A 563
(1993) 205224.
[13] J. Suhonen, O. Civitarese, Two-neutrino decay to excited states: the 0+ 2+ decay of 136 Xe, Phys. Lett. B 308
(1993) 212215.
[14] J. Suhonen, O. Civitarese, Quasiparticle random phase approximation analysis of the double beta decay of 100 Mo
to the ground state and excited states of 100 Ru, Phys. Rev. C 49 (1994) 30553060.
[15] M. Aunola, J. Suhonen, Systematic study of beta and double beta decay to excited final states, Nucl. Phys. A 602
(1996) 133166.
[16] M. Aunola, J. Suhonen, Mean-field effects on neutrinoless double beta decay, Nucl. Phys. A 643 (1998) 207221.
[17] J. Suhonen, Neutrinoless double beta decay to excited collective 0+ states, Phys. Lett. B 477 (2000) 99106.
[18] J. Suhonen, Sub-eV neutrino masses from 0 decay to an excited 0+ state, Phys. Rev. C 62 (2000) 042501(R).
[19] J. Suhonen, Opening of the Z = 40 sub-shell gap and the double beta decay of 100 Mo, Nucl. Phys. A 700 (2002)
649665.
[20] J. Suhonen, M. Aunola, Systematic study of neutrinoless double beta decay to excited 0+ states, Nucl. Phys. A 723
(2003) 271288.
[21] A. Bobyk, W.A. Kaminski, P. Zareba, Study of the double beta decay of 70  A  100 nuclei within the RQRPA
and the self-consistent BCS + RQRPA formalisms, Nucl. Phys. A 669 (2000) 221238.
[22] S. Stoica, Half-lives for two neutrino double-beta-decay transitions to first 2+ excited states, Phys. Rev. C 49 (1994)
22402243.
[23] E. Caurier, G. Martinez-Pinedo, F. Nowacki, A. Poves, A. Zuker, The shell model as a unified view of nuclear
structure, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77 (2005) 427488.
[24] E. Caurier, J. Menndez, F. Nowacki, A. Poves, Influence of pairing on the nuclear matrix elements of the neutrinoless decays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 (2008) 052503.
[25] J. Menndez, A. Poves, E. Caurier, F. Nowacki, Disassembling the nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless
decay, Nucl. Phys. A 818 (2009) 139151.
[26] J. Barea, F. Iachello, Neutrinoless double- decay in the microscopic interacting boson model, Phys. Rev. C 79
(2009) 044301.
[27] P.K. Rath, R. Chandra, K. Chaturvedi, P.K. Raina, J.G. Hirsch, Uncertainties in nuclear transition matrix elements
for neutrinoless decay within the projected-HartreeFockBogoliubov model, Phys. Rev. C 82 (2010) 064310.
[28] T.R. Rodrguez, G. Martnez-Pinedo, Energy density functional study of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless
decay, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 (2010) 252503.
[29] G.A. Miller, J.E. Spencer, A survey of pion charge-exchange reactions with nuclei, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 100 (1976)
562606.

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

89

[30] M. Kortelainen, O. Civitarese, J. Suhonen, J. Toivanen, Short-range correlations and neutrinoless double beta decay,
Phys. Lett. B 647 (2007) 128132.
[31] M. Kortelainen, J. Suhonen, Improved short-range correlations and 0 nuclear matrix elements of 76 Ge and 82 Se,
Phys. Rev. C 75 (2007) 051303(R).
[32] M. Kortelainen, J. Suhonen, Nuclear matrix elements of 0 decay with improved short-range correlations, Phys.
Rev. C 76 (2007) 024315.
[33] J. Suhonen, M. Kortelainen, Nuclear matrix elements for double beta decay, Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 17 (2008) 111.
[34] J. Engel, G. Hagen, Corrections to the neutrinoless double--decay operator in the shell model, Phys. Rev. C 79
(2009) 064317.
[35] F. imkovic, A. Faessler, H. Mther, V. Rodin, M. Stauf, 0-decay nuclear matrix elements with self-consistent
short-range correlations, Phys. Rev. C 79 (2009) 055501.
[36] J.P. Schiffer, et al., Nuclear structure relevant to neutrinoless double decay: 76 Ge and 76 Se, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100
(2008) 112501.
[37] B.P. Kay, et al., Nuclear structure relevant to neutrinoless double decay: the valence protons in 76 Ge and 76 Se,
Phys. Rev. C 79 (2009) 021301(R).
[38] J. Suhonen, O. Civitarese, Effects of orbital occupancies on the neutrinoless matrix element of 76 Ge, Phys. Lett.
B 668 (2008) 277281.
[39] F. imkovic, A. Faessler, P. Vogel, 0 nuclear matrix elements and the occupancy of individual orbits, Phys. Rev.
C 79 (2009) 015502.
[40] J. Menndez, A. Poves, E. Caurier, F. Nowacki, Occupancies of individual orbits, and the nuclear matrix element of
the 76 Ge neutrinoless decay, Phys. Rev. C 80 (2009) 048501.
[41] J. Suhonen, O. Civitarese, Effects of orbital occupancies and spinorbit partners on 0-decay rates, Nucl. Phys.
A 847 (2010) 207232.
[42] J. Suhonen, Nuclear-structure effects on double beta decays to 0+ states in 76 Ge, Int. J. Mod. Phys. E 20 (2011)
451458.
[43] J. Suhonen, Effects of orbital occupancies and spinorbit partners II: 0 decays of 76 Ge, 82 Se and 136 Xe to first
excited 0+ states, Nucl. Phys. A 853 (2011) 3660.
[44] J. Suhonen, Nuclear matrix elements of decay from -decay data, Phys. Lett. B 607 (2005) 8795.
[45] F. imkovic, G. Pantis, J.D. Vergados, A. Faessler, Additional nucleon current contributions to neutrinoless double
decay, Phys. Rev. C 60 (1999) 055502.
[46] O. Civitarese, J. Suhonen, Two-neutrino double beta decay to excited one- and two-phonon states, Nucl. Phys. A 575
(1994) 251268.
[47] J. Suhonen, From Nucleons to Nucleus: Concepts of Microscopic Nuclear Theory, Springer, Berlin, 2007.
[48] D.S. Delion, J. Suhonen, Microscopic description of low-lying two-phonon states: Electromagnetic transitions,
Phys. Rev. C 67 (2003) 034301.
[49] R.F. Casten, N.V. Zamfir, Evidence for pervasive phonon structure of nuclear excitations, Phys. Rep. 264 (1996)
8189.
[50] A. Bohr, B.R. Mottelson, Nuclear Structure, vol. I, Benjamin, New York, 1969.
[51] F. imkovic, A. Faessler, V. Rodin, P. Vogel, J. Engel, Anatomy of the 0 nuclear matrix elements, Phys. Rev.
C 77 (2008) 045503.
[52] O. Civitarese, J. Suhonen, Is the single-state dominance realized in double--decay transitions? Phys. Rev. C 58
(1998) 15351538.
[53] A.A. Raduta, C.M. Raduta, Double beta decay to the first 2+ state within a boson expansion formalism with a
projected spherical single particle basis, Phys. Lett. B 647 (2007) 265270.
[54] P. Domin, S. Kovalenko, F. imkovic, S.V. Semenov, Neutrino accompanied , + /EC and EC/EC processes
within single state dominance hypothesis, Nucl. Phys. A 753 (2005) 337363.
[55] E. Caurier, F. Nowacki, A. Poves, J. Retamosa, Shell model study of the neutrinoless double beta decays, Nucl.
Phys. A 654 (1999) 973c976c.
[56] H. Kiel, D. Mnstermann, K. Zuber, A search for various double beta decay modes of Cd, Te, and Zn isotopes,
Nucl. Phys. A 723 (2003) 499514.
[57] P. Belli, R. Bernabei, F. Cappella, R. Cerulli, F.A. Danevich, S. dAngelo, A. Incicchitti, M. Laubenstain, O.G.
Polischuk, D. Prosperi, V.I. Tretyak, Search for double- decays of 96 Ru and 104 Ru by ultra-low background
HPGe spectrometry, Eur. Phys. J. A 42 (2009) 171177.
[58] E.B. Norman, D.M. Meekhof, New limits on the double beta decay half-lives of 94 Zr, 96 Zr, 116 Cd and 124 Sn, Phys.
Lett. B 195 (1987) 126129.
[59] J. Dawson, D. Degering, M. Khler, R. Ramaswamy, C. Reeve, J.R. Wilson, K. Zuber, Search for double- decays
of tin isotopes with enhanced sensitivity, Phys. Rev. C 78 (2008) 035503.

90

J. Suhonen / Nuclear Physics A 864 (2011) 6390

[60] A.S. Barabash, P. Hubert, A. Nachab, S.I. Konovalov, I.A. Vanyushin, V. Umatov, Search for + EC and ECEC
processes in 112 Sn and decay of 124 Sn to the excited states of 124 Te, Nucl. Phys. A 807 (2008) 269281.
[61] J. Suhonen, S.B. Khadkikar, A. Faessler, Confined quarks and the neutrinoless decay, Phys. Lett. B 237 (1990)
813.
[62] J. Suhonen, S.B. Khadkikar, A. Faessler, Calculation of the neutrinoless decay of 76 Ge using a quark model
with harmonic confinement, Nucl. Phys. A 529 (1991) 727740.
[63] J. Suhonen, S.B. Khadkikar, A. Faessler, The neutrinoless double beta decay of 76 Ge, 82 Se, 86 Kr, 114 Cd, 128,130 Te
and 134,136 Xe in the framework of a relativistic quark confinement model, Nucl. Phys. A 535 (1991) 509547.
[64] M. Doi, T. Kotani, H. Nishiura, E. Takasugi, Double beta decay, Prog. Theor. Phys. 69 (1983) 602635.
[65] M.J. Hwang, et al., KIMS Collaboration, A search for 0 decay of 124 Sn with tin-loaded liquid scintillator,
Astropart. Phys. 31 (2009) 412416.