High precision measurement of the ${}^6$He half-life

Abstract

The half-life of ${}^6$He has been measured using a low energy radioactive beam implanted in a YAP scintillator and recording decay events in a 4$\pi$ geometry. Events were time-stamped with a digital data acquisition system enabling a reliable control of dead-time effects and detector gain variations. The result, $T_{1/2}=(807.25\pm 0.16_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm 0.11_{\mathrm{sys}}$)~ms, provides the most precise value obtained so far and is consistent with the only previous measurement having a precision smaller than 0.1%. This resolves the longstanding discrepancy previously observed between two sets of measurements.

11 pages, 14 figures

Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Opportunities and open questions in modern $\beta$ decay
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