A new method for measuring the neutron lifetime using an in situ neutron detector

Abstract

The neutron lifetime is important in understanding the production of light nuclei in the first minutes after the big bang and it provides basic information on the charged weak current of the standard model of particle physics. Two different methods have been used to measure the neutron lifetime: disappearance measurements using bottled ultracold neutrons and decay rate measurements using neutron beams. The best measurements using these two techniques give results that differ by nearly 4 standard deviations. In this paper we describe a new method for measuring surviving neutrons in neutron lifetime measurements using bottled ultracold neutrons that provides better characterization of systematic uncertainties and enables higher precision than previous measurement techniques. We present results obtained using our method.

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• Tritium $\beta$-decay in pionless effective field theory
• The MCUCN simulation code for ultracold neutron physics
• Upgrade of the ultracold neutron source at the pulsed reactor TRIGA Mainz
• Monte Carlo Simulations of Trapped Ultracold Neutrons in the UCNτ Experiment
• Theoretical evaluation of solar proton-proton fusion reaction rate and its uncertainties
• Demonstration of Sub-micron UCN Position Resolution using Room-temperature CMOS Sensor
• A boron-coated CCD camera for direct detection of Ultracold Neutrons (UCN)
• Monte Carlo simulations for the optimization and data analysis of experiments with ultracold neutrons
• Particles in finite volumes and a toy model of decaying neutrons
• Experiments with ultracold neutrons - first 50 years
• Fill and dump measurement of the neutron lifetime using an asymmetric magneto-gravitational trap