An exciting hint towards the solution of the neutron lifetime puzzle?

2024/03/01 by Benjamin Koch, Koch, Benjamin, Felix Hummel +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Nuclear Physics and Applications

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.00914

openalex publication_date 2024/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We revisit the neutron lifetime puzzle, a discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the weak neutron decay. Since both types of measurements are realized at different times after the nuclear production of free neutrons, we argue that the existence of excited states could be responsible for the different lifetimes. We elaborate on the required properties of such states and under what circumstances it is possible that they have not been experimentally identified yet.

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