Progress Towards a Precision Measurement of the Neutron Lifetime Using Magnetically Trapped Ultracold Neutrons
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695 (United States)
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO 80303 (United States)
- Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 (United States)
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 (United States)
As part of an on-going program utilizing magnetically trapped ultracold neutrons (UCNs), we are developing a technique that offers the possibility of improving the precision of the neutron lifetime by more than an order of magnitude. The experiment works by loading an Ioffe-type superconducting magnetic trap with UCNs through inelastic scattering of 0.89 nm neutrons with phonons in superfluid 4He. Trapped neutrons are detected when they decay; charged decay electrons ionize helium atoms in the superfluid resulting in scintillation light that is recorded in real time using photomultiplier tubes. At present, we are installing a larger and deeper superconducting magnetic trap into our apparatus, implementing techniques to reduce background events, and working to increase the neutron decay detection efficiency. We report the status of the construction of the improved apparatus.
- OSTI ID:
- 20875836
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 842, Issue 1; Conference: 17. international conference on particles and nuclei, Santa Fe, NM (United States), 23-30 Oct 2005; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2220390; (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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