Preliminary measurement of the 2$\nu\beta\beta$ decay half-life of $^{150}$Nd to $^{150}$Sm

Abstract

The NEMO-3 experiment searches for neutrino-less double beta (0$\nu\beta\beta$) decay in seven different isotopes simultaneously by reconstructing the full event topology of each decay. One of the investigated isotopes is Nd-150, which has the second highest Q-value (3.37 MeV) of all 0$\nu\beta\beta$ candidate isotopes, as well as a favourable phase space factor and matrix element. The largest sources of background in the search for this rare decay process in Nd-150 are Tl-208 and the irreducible 2$\nu\beta\beta$ decay. Using the full data set from NEMO-3 detector, a complete description of the background model is presented, along with a preliminary measurement of the 2$\nu\beta\beta$ decay rate for Nd-150 to the ground state of Sm-150.