Measurement of the Neutron Lifetime Using a Proton Trap

Abstract

We report a new measurement of the neutron decay lifetime by the absolute counting of in-beam neutrons and their decay protons. Protons were confined in a quasi-Penning trap and counted with a silicon detector. The neutron beam fluence was measured by capture in a thin 6LiF foil detector with known absolute efficiency. The combination of these simultaneous measurements gives the neutron lifetime: tau_n = 886.8 +/- 1.2[stat] +/- 3.2[sys] seconds. The systematic uncertainty is dominated by uncertainties in the mass of the 6LiF deposit and the 6Li(n,t) cross section. This is the most precise measurement of the neutron lifetime to date using an in-beam method.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Sharpening the predictions of big-bang nucleosynthesis
• Is the Unitarity of the quark-mixing-CKM-matrix violated in neutron $\beta$-decay?
• Precision Prediction for the Big-Bang Abundance of Primordial Helium
• The Evaluation of V_{ud}, Experiment and Theory

Cited by in corpus (19)

• QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories: challenges and perspectives
• Tests of the standard electroweak model in beta decay
• Improved Determination of the Neutron Lifetime
• Measurement of the Neutron Lifetime by Counting Trapped Protons in a Cold Neutron Beam
• Experiments in Fundamental Neutron Physics
• Phenomenology of 10^32 Dark Sectors
• On the experimental search for neutron -- mirror neutron oscillations
• A New World Average Value for the Neutron Lifetime
• Precision Measurement of the Radiative $\mathrm{B}$ Decay of the Free Neutron
• Framework for maximum likelihood analysis of neutron beta decay observables to resolve the limits of the V-A law
• Measurement of the neutron lifetime and inverse quantum Zeno effect
• Precision determination of absolute neutron flux
• Optimal Proton Trapping in a Neutron Lifetime Experiment
• Testing the Unitarity of the CKM Matrix with a Space-Based Neutron Decay Experiment
• Detection of molecular hydrogen in a neutron beam lifetime experiment
• A novel technique of extracting UCN lifetimes from storage bottle measurements dominated by scattering losses
• Options for the Neutron Lifetime Measurements in Traps
• Happy Birthday, Ultra-Cold Neutron!
• Measurement of Neutron Lifetime and Purcell Effect