Related papers: Neutron beta-decay, Standard Model and cosmology
The recent measurement of the lifetime of the free neutron using the beam method has an 8.7 s (4$\sigma$) discrepancy with UCN measurements. The goal of the BL3 experiment is to improve the statistical error of this measurement and help…
Since neutrinos have mass differences, they could decay into one another. But their lifetimes are likely long, even when shortened by new physics, so decay likely impacts neutrinos only during long trips. This makes high-energy…
A new technique was developed to measure the lifetimes of neutron unbound nuclei in the picosecond range. The decay of 26O -> 24O+n+n was examined as it had been predicted to have an appreciable lifetime due to the unique structure of the…
The neutron lifetime has been measured by comparing the decay rate with the reaction rate of $^3$He nuclei of a pulsed neutron beam from the spallation neutron source at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The decay rate…
It is shown how deviations of neutrino flavor mix from the canonical 1 : 1 : 1 in high energy astrophysical neutrinos can provide evidence for neutrino decays with lifetimes as long as $10^4 s/eV$.
A method for the general analysis of the sensitivities of neutron beta-decay experiments to manifestations of possible deviations from the Standard model is proposed. In a consistent fashion, we take into account all known (radiative and…
All results of the neutron lifetime measurements performed in the last 20 years with the UCN storage method are in a good agreement. These results are consistent with the latest most accurate measurements of the neutron decay asymmetry…
It is well known and well established by scientific observation that a free neutron radioactively decays into a proton plus an electron plus an anti-neutrino with a mean life time before decay of about 900 seconds. That established fact…
Nuclear beta decay rates are an essential ingredient in simulations of the astrophysical r-process. Most of these rates still rely on theoretical modeling. However, modern radioactive ion-beam facilities have allowed to measure beta half…
This paper gives a brief overview of the present and expected future limits on physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) from neutron beta decay, which is described by two parameters only within the SM. Since more than two observables are…
If the Standard Model is correct, and fundamental fermions exist only in the three generations, then the CKM matrix should be unitary. However, there remains a question over a deviation from unitarity from the value of the neutron lifetime.…
A model of $n-n'$ (neutron-mirror neutron) oscillations is proposed under the framework of the mirror matter theory with slightly broken mirror symmetry. It resolves the neutron lifetime discrepancy, i.e., the 1% difference in neutron…
Invisible neutrino decay modes are difficult to target at laboratory experiments, and current bounds on such decays from solar neutrino and neutrino oscillation experiments are somewhat weak. It has been known for some time that Cosmology…
We report an improved measurement of the free neutron lifetime $\tau_{n}$ using the UCN$\tau$ apparatus at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. We counted a total of approximately $38\times10^{6}$ surviving ultracold neutrons (UCN) after…
The universal radiative corrections common to neutron and super-allowed nuclear beta decays (also known as ``inner'' corrections) are revisited in light of a recent dispersion relation study that found $+2.467(22)\%$, i.e.~about $2.4\sigma$…
Neutrino oscillation experiments and direct bounds on absolute masses constrain neutrino mass differences to fall into the microwave energy range, for most of the allowed parameter space. As a consequence of these recent phenomenological…
Measurements of neutron beta decay observables required to determine $|V_{ud}|$ are reaching the 0.1% accuracy. In this paper we review the calculation of the decay rate of this process, discuss its relevant uncertainties, and obtain an…
Some extensions of the standard model contain additional leptons which are vectorlike under weak isospin. A class of models is considered in which these leptons do not appreciably mix with the known leptons. In such models, the heavy…
We demonstrate that the observation of neutron stars with masses greater than one solar mass places severe demands on any exotic neutron decay mode that could explain the discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the neutron…
We discuss the effect of the recent change of $V_{\rm us}$ by three standard deviations on the standard model predictions for neutron beta decay observables. We also discuss the effect the experimental error bars of $V_{\rm us}$ have on…