Frankfurt 2014 – scientific programme
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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne
HK 9: Fundamentale Symmetrien
HK 9.8: Talk
Monday, March 17, 2014, 18:45–19:00, HZ 3
tau-SPECT: Neutron lifetime measurement at TRIGA Mainz — Marcus Beck1, Simo Dragisic1, Klaus Eberhardt2, Werner Heil1, •Jan Peter Karch1, Fabian Kories1, Yury Sobolev1,2, Dietmar Stepanow1, and Norbert Trautmann2 — 1Institut für Physik, University of Mainz, Germany — 2Institut für Kernchemie, University of Mainz, Germany
The decay of the free neutron into a proton, electron and antineutrino is the prototype of the semi-leptonic weak decay and plays a key role in particle physics and astrophysics. The accuracy in the experimental determination of the neutron lifetime could be steadily improved over the last 60 years. Nowadays, the achieved accuracy is limited by systematic errors, mainly caused by anomalous losses during storage of neutrons (ultracold neutrons) in material vessels. With the magnetic storage of neutrons one would like to avoid these systematic limitations and to reach an accuracy of 0.1-0.3 s in the lifetime of the neutron. In the talk, the magnetic spectrometer tau-SPECT is presented, which uses a combination of magnetic multipole fields for radial storage and the field configuration of the superconducting aSPECT magnet [1] for longitudinal storage of ultracold neutrons. This storage experiment benefits greatly from the new ultracold neutron source at the pulsable TRIGA reactor Mainz. [1] S. Baeßler et al., Eur. Phys. J. A 38, 1726 (2008)