Exotic decay channels are not the cause of the neutron lifetime anomaly

Abstract

Since long neutron lifetimes measured with a beam of cold neutrons are significantly different from lifetimes measured with ultracold neutrons bottled in a trap. It is often speculated that this "neutron anomaly" is due to an exotic dark neutron decay channel of unknown origin. We show that this explanation of the neutron anomaly can be excluded with a high level of confidence when use is made of new data on neutron decay parameters. Furthermore, data from neutron decay now compare well with Ft data derived from nuclear \b{eta} decays.

12 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Measurement of the Weak Axial-Vector Coupling Constant in the Decay of Free Neutrons Using a Pulsed Cold Neutron Beam
• Precision Measurement of the Neutron Beta-Decay Asymmetry
• Experiments in Fundamental Neutron Physics
• Constraints on the Dark Matter Interpretation $n\to \chi +e^{+}{e}^{-}$ of the Neutron Decay Anomaly with the PERKEO II experiment

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Measurement of the Weak Axial-Vector Coupling Constant in the Decay of Free Neutrons Using a Pulsed Cold Neutron Beam
• Neutron Stars with Baryon Number Violation, Probing Dark Sectors
• Constraints on the Dark Matter Interpretation $n\to \chi +e^{+}{e}^{-}$ of the Neutron Decay Anomaly with the PERKEO II experiment
• Precise Measurements of the Decay of Free Neutrons
• Neutron Decay to a Non-Abelian Dark Sector
• Measurement of Neutron Lifetime and Purcell Effect