A new neutron lifetime experiment with cold neutron beam decay in superfluid helium-4
- Creators
- Wei, Wanchun
Abstract
The puzzle remains in the large discrepancy between neutron lifetime measured by the two distinct experimental approaches—counts of beta decays in a neutron beam and storage of ultracold neutrons in a potential trap, namely, the beam method versus the bottle method. In this paper, we propose a new experiment to measure the neutron lifetime in a cold neutron (CN) beam with a sensitivity goal of 0.1% or sub-1 s. The neutron beta decays will be counted in a superfluid helium-4 scintillation detector at 0.5 K, and the neutron flux will be simultaneously monitored by the helium-3 captures in the same volume. The CN beam must be of wavelength λ > 16.5 Å to eliminate scattering with superfluid helium. A new precise measurement of neutron lifetime with the beam method of unique inherent systematic effects will greatly advance in resolving the puzzle.
Additional Information
© 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd. Received 28 May 2020; Revised 31 July 2020; Accepted 6 August 2020; Published 28 October 2020. This paper greatly benefits from the publications, notes and data shared by the SNS nEDM collaboration. The author acknowledges Vince Cianciolo, Bradley W. Filippone, Roy J. Holt, Humphrey J. Maris, Jeffrey S. Nico, George M. Seidel, Christopher M. Swank, Fred E. Wietfeldt and Liyuan Zhang for help and discussions on many topics presented in this paper. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1812340.Attached Files
Submitted - 2001.10041.pdf
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Additional details
- Alternative title
- A New Neutron Lifetime Experiment with Cold Neutron Beam Decay in Liquid Helium
- Eprint ID
- 101871
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200311-160614739
- PHY-1812340
- NSF
- Created
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2020-03-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-07-12Created from EPrint's last_modified field