Measurement of the ββ decay half-life of 130Te with the NEMO-3 detector

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Aug 5;107(6):062504. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.062504. Epub 2011 Aug 4.

Abstract

We report results from the NEMO-3 experiment based on an exposure of 1275 days with 661 g of (130)Te in the form of enriched and natural tellurium foils. The ββ decay rate of (130)Te is found to be greater than zero with a significance of 7.7 standard deviations and the half-life is measured to be T(½)(2ν) = [7.0 ± 0.9(stat) ± 1.1(syst)] × 10(20) yr. This represents the most precise measurement of this half-life yet published and the first real-time observation of this decay.