Muon capture reaction on 100Mo to study the nuclear response for double-β decay and neutrinos of astrophysics origin.

Ordinary muon capture (OMC) on enriched 100Mo isotopes was studied for the first time to investigate neutrino nuclear responses for neutrinoless double-β decays and supernova neutrino nuclear interactions. Muon capture on 100Mo proceeds mainly as 100Mo(µ,xn)100-xNb with x being the number of neutrons emitted from negative muon capture. The Nb isotope mass distribution was obtained by measuring delayed γ rays from radioactive 100-xNb. By using the neutron emission model after the muon capture, the neutrino response (the strength distribution) for OMC was derived. The OMC strength distribution shows a giant resonance (GR) at the peak energy around 11-14 MeV, suggesting the concentration of the OMC strength at the muon GR region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]