Radiative tritium β-decay and the neutrino mass

AbstractThe shape of the electron energy spectrum in 3H β-decay permits a direct assay of the absolute scale of the neutrino mass; a highly accurate theoretical description of the electron energy spectrum is necessary to the empirical task. We update Sirlin's calculation of the outer radiative correction to nuclear β-decay to take into account the non-zero energy resolution of the electron detector. In previous 3H β-decay studies the outer radiative corrections were neglected all together; only Coulomb corrections to the spectrum were included. This neglect artificially pushes mν2