Abstract: The beta-decay of the even-even nucleus Kr-70 with Z=N+2, has been investigated at the Radioactive Ion Beam Factory (RIBF) of the RIKEN Nishina Center using the BigRIPS fragment separator, the ZeroDegree Spectrometer, the WAS3ABI implantation station and the EURICA HPGe cluster array. Fifteen gamma-rays associated with the beta-decay of( 70)Kr into Br-70 have been identified for the first time, defining ten populated states below E-exc=3300 keV. The half-life of Kr-70 was derived with increased precision and found to be t(1/2)=45.19 +/- 0.14 ms. The beta-delayed proton emission probability has also been determined as epsilon(p)=0.545(23)%. An increase in the beta-strength to the yrast 1(+) state in comparison with the heaviest Z=N+2 system studied so far (Ge-62 decay) is observed that may indicate increased np correlations in the T=0 channel. The beta-decay strength deduced from the results is interpreted in terms of the proton-neutron quasiparticle random-phase approximation (pnQRPA) and also with a schematic model that includes isoscalar and isovector pairing in addition to quadrupole deformation. The application of this last model indicates an approximate realization of pseudo-SU(4) symmetry in this system.

Abstract: The extraction of the neutrino mass ordering is one of the major challenges in particle physics and cosmology, not only for its implications for a fundamental theory of mass generation in nature, but also for its decisive role in the scale of future neutrinoless double beta decay experimental searches. It has been recently claimed that current oscillation, beta decay and cosmological limits on the different observables describing the neutrino mass parameter space provide robust decisive Bayesian evidence in favor of the normal ordering of the neutrino mass spectrum [1]. We further investigate these strong claims using a rich and wide phenomenology, with different sampling techniques of the neutrino parameter space. Contrary to the findings of Jimenez et al. [1], no decisive evidence for the normal mass ordering is found. Neutrino mass ordering analyses must rely on priors and parameterizations that are ordering-agnostic: robust results should be regarded as those in which the preference for the normal neutrino mass ordering is driven exclusively by the data, while we find a difference of up to a factor of 33 in the Bayes factors among the different priors and parameterizations exploited here. An ordering-agnostic prior would be represented by the case of parameterizations sampling over the two mass splittings and a mass scale, or those sampling over the individual neutrino masses via normal prior distributions only. In this regard, we show that the current significance in favor of the normal mass ordering should be taken as 2.7 sigma (i.e. moderate evidence), mostly driven by neutrino oscillation data. Let us stress that, while current data favor NO only mildly, we do not exclude the possibility that this may change in the future. Eventually, upcoming oscillation and cosmological data may (or may not) lead to a more significant exclusion of IO.

Abstract: We consider a type-I seesaw framework endowed with a flavour symmetry, belonging to the series of non-abelian groups increment (3 n(2)) and increment (6 n(2)), and a CP symmetry. Breaking these symmetries in a non-trivial way results in the right-handed neutrinos being degenerate in mass up to possible (further symmetry-breaking) splittings kappa and lambda, while the neutrino Yukawa coupling matrix encodes the entire flavour structure in the neutrino sector. For a fixed combination of flavour and CP symmetry and residual groups, this matrix contains five real free parameters. Four of them are determined by the light neutrino mass spectrum and by accommodating experimental data on lepton mixing well, while the angle theta(R) is related to right-handed neutrinos. We scrutinise for all four lepton mixing patterns, grouped into Case 1) through Case 3 b.1), the potential to generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe through low-scale leptogenesis numerically and analytically. The main results are: a) the possible correlation of the baryon asymmetry and the Majorana phases, encoded in the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata mixing matrix, in certain instances; b) the possibility to generate the correct amount of baryon asymmetry for vanishing splittings kappa and lambda among the right-handed neutrinos as well as for large kappa, depending on the case and the specific choice of group theory parameters; c) the chance to produce sufficient baryon asymmetry for large active-sterile mixing angles, enabling direct experimental tests at current and future facilities, if theta(R) is close to a special value, potentially protected by an enhanced residual symmetry. We elucidate these results with representative examples of flavour and CP symmetries, which all lead to a good agreement with the measured values of the lepton mixing angles and, possibly, the current indication of the CP phase delta. We identify the CP-violating combinations relevant for low-scale leptogenesis, and show that the parametric dependence of the baryon asymmetry found in the numerical study can be understood well with their help.