Abstract
An unexplained >4s discrepancy persists between "beam"and "bottle"measurements of the neutron lifetime. A new model proposed that conversions of neutrons n into mirror neutrons n', part of a dark mirror sector, can increase the apparent neutron lifetime by 1% via a small mass splitting ?m between n and n' inside the 4.6 T magnetic field of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Beam Lifetime experiment. A search for neutron conversions in a 6.6 T magnetic field was performed at the Spallation Neutron Source which excludes this explanation for the neutron lifetime discrepancy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 212503 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 128 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 27 2022 |
Funding
This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics (Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725), and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program (Project No. 8215) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and was authored and managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. DOE, and in part by the U.S. DOE, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) under the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program. The publisher acknowledges the U.S. government license to provide public access under the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). J. L. Barrow was supported by the U.S. DOE, Office of Science, Office of WDTS, Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. The SCGSR program is administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the DOE under Contract No. DESC0014664. L. Varriano was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1746045. This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.