Antineutrino Disintegration of the Deuteron

Abstract

The cross section for the antineutrino disintegration of the deuteron, $\tilde{\nu }+d\to n+n+e^{+}$, is considered. The only important contribution to the cross section arises from a ${}_{}{}^1{}_{}{}^{}S$ final nucleon state, and only the tensor part of the beta-interaction is effective. The matrix element can be evaluated by the effective-range formulation well known from calculations of the photomagnetic disintegration of the deuteron. The cross section is evaluated for three antineutrino energies: 5.5, 8.5, 13.5 Mev. The results for this process would be the same if the neutrino were a Majorana particle.