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Improved Neutron Lifetime Measurement with UCNτ

F. M. Gonzalez1,2,3, E. M. Fries4, C. Cude-Woods5,6, T. Bailey5,6, M. Blatnik4, L. J. Broussard3, N. B. Callahan7, J. H. Choi5,6, S. M. Clayton8 et al. (UCNτ Collaboration)

S. M. Clayton8, S. A. Currie8, M. Dawid1,2, E. B. Dees5,6, B. W. Filippone4, W. Fox1,2, P. Geltenbort9, E. George10, L. Hayen5,6, K. P. Hickerson4, M. A. Hoffbauer8, K. Hoffman10, A. T. Holley10, T. M. Ito8, A. Komives11, C.-Y. Liu1,2, M. Makela8, C. L. Morris8, R. Musedinovic5,6, C. O’Shaughnessy8, R. W. Pattie, Jr.12, J. Ramsey3, D. J. Salvat1,2,*, A. Saunders8,3, E. I. Sharapov13, S. Slutsky4, V. Su4, X. Sun4, C. Swank4, Z. Tang8, W. Uhrich8, J. Vanderwerp1,2, P. Walstrom8, Z. Wang8, W. Wei4, and A. R. Young5,6 (UCNτ Collaboration)

  • 1Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 2Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
  • 3Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
  • 4Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
  • 5Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA
  • 6Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
  • 7Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 8Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 9Institut Laue-Langevin, CS 20156, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
  • 10Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee 38505, USA
  • 11DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135, USA
  • 12East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee 37614, USA
  • 13Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia

  • *dsalvat@iu.edu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 162501 – Published 13 October, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.162501

Abstract

We report an improved measurement of the free neutron lifetime τn using the UCNτ apparatus at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. We count a total of approximately 38×106 surviving ultracold neutrons (UCNs) after storing in UCNτ’s magnetogravitational trap over two data acquisition campaigns in 2017 and 2018. We extract τn from three blinded, independent analyses by both pairing long and short storage time runs to find a set of replicate τn measurements and by performing a global likelihood fit to all data while self-consistently incorporating the β-decay lifetime. Both techniques achieve consistent results and find a value τn=877.75±0.28stat+0.22/−0.16syst  s. With this sensitivity, neutron lifetime experiments now directly address the impact of recent refinements in our understanding of the standard model for neutron decay.

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Viewpoint

Measuring the Neutron Lifetime with Record-Breaking Precision

Published 13 October, 2021

An improved version of a “bottle” experiment lets researchers lower the uncertainty on this important parameter—but a tantalizing discrepancy remains.

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