Experimental Approach to Search for Free Neutron-Antineutron Oscillations Based on Coherent Neutron and Antineutron Mirror Reflection
Abstract
An observation of neutron-antineutron oscillations (n – n¯), which violate both B and B – L conservation, would constitute a scientific discovery of fundamental importance to physics and cosmology. A stringent upper bound on its transition rate would make an important contribution to our understanding of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe by eliminating the postsphaleron baryogenesis scenario in the light quark sector. We show that one can design an experiment using slow neutrons that in principle can reach the required sensitivity of τn–n¯ ~ 1010 s in the oscillation time, an improvement of ~ 104 in the oscillation probability relative to the existing limit for free neutrons. The improved statistical accuracy needed to reach this sensitivity can be achieved by allowing both the neutron and antineutron components of the developing superposition state to coherently reflect from mirrors. We present a quantitative analysis of this scenario and show that, for sufficiently small transverse momenta of n/n¯ and for certain choices of nuclei for the n/n¯ guide material, the relative phase shift of the n and n¯ components upon reflection and the n¯ annihilation rate can be small enough to maintain sufficient coherence to benefit from the greater phase space acceptancemore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1525340
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1612340
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0015882
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 122 Journal Issue: 22; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; Physics; Particle mixing & oscillations
Citation Formats
Nesvizhevsky, V. V., Gudkov, V., Protasov, K. V., Snow, W. M., and Voronin, A. Yu. Experimental Approach to Search for Free Neutron-Antineutron Oscillations Based on Coherent Neutron and Antineutron Mirror Reflection. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.221802.
Nesvizhevsky, V. V., Gudkov, V., Protasov, K. V., Snow, W. M., & Voronin, A. Yu. Experimental Approach to Search for Free Neutron-Antineutron Oscillations Based on Coherent Neutron and Antineutron Mirror Reflection. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.221802
Nesvizhevsky, V. V., Gudkov, V., Protasov, K. V., Snow, W. M., and Voronin, A. Yu. Fri .
"Experimental Approach to Search for Free Neutron-Antineutron Oscillations Based on Coherent Neutron and Antineutron Mirror Reflection". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.221802.
@article{osti_1525340,
title = {Experimental Approach to Search for Free Neutron-Antineutron Oscillations Based on Coherent Neutron and Antineutron Mirror Reflection},
author = {Nesvizhevsky, V. V. and Gudkov, V. and Protasov, K. V. and Snow, W. M. and Voronin, A. Yu.},
abstractNote = {An observation of neutron-antineutron oscillations (n – n¯), which violate both B and B – L conservation, would constitute a scientific discovery of fundamental importance to physics and cosmology. A stringent upper bound on its transition rate would make an important contribution to our understanding of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe by eliminating the postsphaleron baryogenesis scenario in the light quark sector. We show that one can design an experiment using slow neutrons that in principle can reach the required sensitivity of τn–n¯ ~ 1010 s in the oscillation time, an improvement of ~ 104 in the oscillation probability relative to the existing limit for free neutrons. The improved statistical accuracy needed to reach this sensitivity can be achieved by allowing both the neutron and antineutron components of the developing superposition state to coherently reflect from mirrors. We present a quantitative analysis of this scenario and show that, for sufficiently small transverse momenta of n/n¯ and for certain choices of nuclei for the n/n¯ guide material, the relative phase shift of the n and n¯ components upon reflection and the n¯ annihilation rate can be small enough to maintain sufficient coherence to benefit from the greater phase space acceptance the mirror provides.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.221802},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 22,
volume = 122,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Fri Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.221802
Web of Science
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