Bonn 2010 – scientific programme
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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne
HK 27: Fundamentale Symmetrien I
HK 27.8: Talk
Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 18:45–19:00, HG V
aSPECT - Measuring the proton spectrum in neutron decay — •Martin Simson1,2, Fidel Ayala Guardia3, Stefan Baessler4, Michael Borg3, Ferenc Glück5, Werner Heil3, Igor Konorov2, Gertrud Konrad3, Raquel Muñoz Horta3, Beatrix Ostrick3, Torsten Soldner1,2, Hans-Friedrich Wirth6, and Oliver Zimmer1,2 — 1Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France — 2Physik-Department E18, TU München — 3Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz — 4University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA — 5IEKP, Universität Karlsruhe (TH) — 6Fakultät für Physik, LMU München
With the aSPECT spectrometer we measure the proton recoil spectrum in the decay of the free neutron. Its shape depends on the angular correlation between the momenta of the antineutrino and electron for kinematic reasons. A precision measurement of this correlation coefficient a allows to test the unitarity of the CKM matrix and provides limits on the existence of scalar and tensor currents.
aSPECT is a retardation spectrometer, this means protons from neutron decay are guided by a strong magnetic field and the proton recoil spectrum is measured by counting all protons that overcome a electrostatic barrier. By varying the height of the barrier the shape of the proton spectrum can be reconstructed. After the barrier the protons are accelerated to ∼15 keV and detected by a silicon drift detector.
This talk will cover details of the spectrometer and detector, as well as techniques used in the ongoing data analysis.