Measurement of the Electron-Antineutrino Angular Correlation in Neutron β Decay

G Darius; W A Byron; C R DeAngelis; M T Hassan; F E Wietfeldt; B Collett; G L Jones; M S Dewey; M P Mendenhall; J S Nico; H Park; A Komives; E J Stephenson

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.042502

Measurement of the Electron-Antineutrino Angular Correlation in Neutron β Decay

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Jul 28;119(4):042502. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.042502. Epub 2017 Jul 25.

Authors

G Darius¹, W A Byron¹, C R DeAngelis¹, M T Hassan¹, F E Wietfeldt¹, B Collett², G L Jones², M S Dewey³, M P Mendenhall³, J S Nico³, H Park³, A Komives⁴, E J Stephenson⁵

Affiliations

¹ Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, USA.
² Hamilton College, Clinton, New York 13323, USA.
³ National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA.
⁴ DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135, USA.
⁵ Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47408, USA.

PMID: 29341742
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.042502

Abstract

We report the first result for the electron-antineutrino angular correlation (a coefficient) in free neutron β decay from the aCORN experiment. aCORN uses a novel method in which the a coefficient is proportional to an asymmetry in proton time of flight for events where the β electron and recoil proton are detected in delayed coincidence. Data are presented from a 15 month run at the NIST Center for Neutron Research. We obtained a=-0.1090±0.0030(stat)±0.0028(sys), the most precise measurement of the neutron a coefficient reported to date.