A search for neutron to mirror neutron oscillation using neutron electric dipole moment measurements

Abstract

Baryon number violation is a key ingredient of baryogenesis. It has been hypothesized that there could also be a parity-conjugated copy of the standard model particles, called mirror particles. The existence of such a mirror universe has specific testable implications, especially in the domain of neutral particle oscillation, viz. the baryon number violating neutron to mirror-neutron ($n-n^{\prime }$) oscillation. Consequently, there were many experiments that have searched for $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillation, and imposed constraints upon the parameters that describe it. All the previous efforts searched for $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillation by comparing the relative number of ultracold neutrons that survive after a period of storage for one or both of the two cases: (i) comparison of zero applied magnetic field to a non-zero applied magnetic field, and (ii) comparison where the orientation of the applied magnetic field was reversed. However, $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillations also lead to variations in the precession frequency of polarized neutrons upon flipping the direction of the applied magnetic field. For the first time, we used the data from the latest search for the neutron electric dipole moment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081803 (2020)] to constrain $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillation. After compensating for the systematic effects that affect the ratio of precession frequencies of ultracold neutrons and cohabiting ${}^{199}$Hg-atoms, chief among which was due to their motion in non-uniform magnetic field, we constrained any further perturbations due to $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillation. We thereby provide a lower limit on the $n-n^{\prime }$ oscillation time constant of ${\tau }_{n{n}^{\prime }}/\sqrt{|\cos (\beta )|}>5.7$s, $0.36\mu$T'$<B^{\prime }<1.01\mu$T' (95\% C.L.), where $\beta$ is the angle between the applied magnetic field and the ambient mirror magnetic field. This constraint is the best available in the range of $0.36\mu$T'$<B^{\prime }<0.40\mu$T'.

12 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. References edited

References in corpus (21)

• Measurement of the permanent electric dipole moment of the neutron
• Mirror particles and mirror matter: 50 years of speculation and search
• Neutron -- Mirror Neutron Oscillation: How Fast Might It Be?
• An Improved Limit on Invisible Decays of Positronium
• Experimental search for neutron - mirror neutron oscillations using storage of ultracold neutrons
• More about neutron - mirror neutron oscillation
• A direct experimental limit on neutron -- mirror neutron oscillations
• Fast Neutron - Mirror Neutron Oscillation and Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Neutron to Mirror-Neutron Oscillations in the Presence of Mirror Magnetic Fields
• Dynamic stabilization of the magnetic field surrounding the neutron electric dipole moment spectrometer at the Paul Scherrer Institute
• A comprehensive analysis of the dark matter direct detection experiments in the mirror dark matter framework
• Phenomenology of 10^32 Dark Sectors
• Modified big bang nucleosynthesis with non-standard neutron sources
• A measurement of the neutron to 199Hg magnetic moment ratio
• The PanEDM Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Experiment at the ILL
• Reply to Comment on ``An Improved Experimental Limit on the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron''
• Ultracold neutron detection with 6Li-doped glass scintillators, NANOSC: a fast ultracold neutron detector for the nEDM experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute
• Marriage between the baryonic and dark matters
• Neutron-Mirror-Neutron Oscillations in a Trap
• New search for mirror neutron regeneration
• Baryogenesis in Cosmological Model with Superstring-Inspired E_6 Unification

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Neutron Stars with Baryon Number Violation, Probing Dark Sectors
• Particle Physics at the European Spallation Source
• Constraints on Neutron-Mirror-Neutron Oscillation from Neutron Star Cooling