Beta Decay of Molecular Tritium

Abstract

The beta decay of tritium in the form of molecular ${\mathrm{T}}_{2}$ is the basis of sensitive experiments to measure neutrino mass. The final-state electronic, vibrational, and rotational excitations modify the beta spectrum significantly and are obtained from theory. We report measurements of the branching ratios to specific ionization states for the isotopolog HT. Two earlier, concordant measurements gave branching ratios of HT to the bound ${\mathrm{HHe}}^{+}$ ion of 89.5% and 93.2%, in sharp disagreement with the theoretical prediction of 55%--57%, raising concerns about the theory's reliability in neutrino mass experiments. Our result, 56.5(6)%, is compatible with the theoretical expectation and disagrees strongly with the previous measurements.