Eur. Phys. J. A (2018) 54: 79
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2018-12515-5

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

An innovative technique for the investigation of the 4-fold forbidden beta-decay of ⁵⁰V

¹ Gran Sasso Science Institute, I-67100, L’Aquila, Italy
² INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, I-67100, Assergi (L’Aquila), Italy
³ Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina, 29208, Columbia, SC, USA

^* e-mail: luca.pattavina@lngs.infn.it

Received: 15 January 2018
Accepted: 16 April 2018
Published online: 16 May 2018

Abstract

For the first time a Vanadium-based crystal was operated as cryogenic particle detector. The scintillating low temperature calorimetric technique was used for the characterization of a 22g YVO₄ crystal aiming at the investigation of the 4-fold forbidden non-unique decay of ⁵⁰V. The excellent bolometric performance of the compound together with high light output of the crystal make it an outstanding technique for the study of such elusive rate process. The internal radioactive contaminations of the crystal are also investigated showing that an improvement on the current status of material selection and purification are needed, ^235/238U and ²³²Th are measured at the level of 28mBq/kg, 1.3 Bq/kg and 28m Bq/kg, respectively. In this work, we also discuss a future upgrade of the experimental set-up which may pave the road for the detection of the rare ⁵⁰V decay.