| Literature DB >> 28571423 |
C L Morris1, E R Adamek2, L J Broussard3, N B Callahan2, S M Clayton1, C Cude-Woods4, S A Currie1, X Ding5, W Fox2, K P Hickerson6, M A Hoffbauer1, A T Holley7, A Komives8, C-Y Liu2, M Makela1, R W Pattie1, J Ramsey1, D J Salvat9, A Saunders1, S J Seestrom1, E I Sharapov10, S K Sjue1, Z Tang1, J Vanderwerp2, B Vogelaar5, P L Walstrom1, Z Wang1, Wanchun Wei1, J W Wexler4, T L Womack1, A R Young4, B A Zeck1.
Abstract
In this paper, we describe a new method for measuring surviving neutrons in neutron lifetime measurements using bottled ultracold neutrons (UCN), which provides better characterization of systematic uncertainties and enables higher precision than previous measurement techniques. An active detector that can be lowered into the trap has been used to measure the neutron distribution as a function of height and measure the influence of marginally trapped UCN on the neutron lifetime measurement. In addition, measurements have demonstrated phase-space evolution and its effect on the lifetime measurement.Entities:
Year: 2017 PMID: 28571423 PMCID: PMC5648580 DOI: 10.1063/1.4983578
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Rev Sci Instrum ISSN: 0034-6748 Impact factor: 1.523
FIG. 1.Cross sectional view showing the detector, the actuator, and the UCN trap. The locations of the dagger, cleaner, and trap door are shown. The dagger is in its lowest (counting) position and the trap door is in its loading (lowered) position.
FIG. 2.Schematic layout of the UCN beam line showing the monitor detector locations relative to the trap.
UCN properties of the detector materials. VFermi is the surface potential and t is the adsorption time for UCN in the material.
| Material | VFermi (neV) | Absorption time (ns) |
|---|---|---|
| 10B | −3.7 | 8.4 |
| Al | 54.7 | 3.3 × 105 |
| ZnS | 75.7 | 1.1 × 105 |
| Acrylic | 27.6 | 2.4 × 105 |
| Polyimide | 91.2 | 2.8 × 105 |
FIG. 3.Photographs of the detector. (Left) During assembly, showing the phototube housings (PMT), the wave length shifting fiber light (WLSF) transport. (Right) Assembled detector.
FIG. 4.Spectra of the number of pulses (PE) detected for UCN + background events (solid line) and background events (dashed line). The vertical dashed line is PE = 8, the threshold chosen to define a UCN event. The normalizations are arbitrary.
FIG. 5.Detector pulse shape (grey points) and three-exponential fit (black curve).
FIG. 6.Efficiency as a function of the minimum number of PE required for an event. The dashed line is drawn at PE = 8. From Figure 4 it can be seen that the higher threshold results in a large decrease in the sensitivity to background with little loss in efficiency.
FIG. 7.Summed short and long storage time distributions from the first τn data set.
FIG. 8.Overlay of the short and long, background subtracted, two step unloading time distributions for two step counting. The long holding time spectrum has been offset in time to line up with the short holding time spectrum, and both have been normalized by their integrals. Counting groups are labeled 1 and 2.
FIG. 9.Same as Figure 8 but with dagger cleaning.
Preliminary measured and corrected values of the neutron lifetime. A. One step counting. B. Two step counting. C. Two step counting with dagger cleaning.
| Raw | Cleaning | Vacuum | Corrected | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set | τmeasured | Δτmeasured | τcorrection | Δτcorrection | τcorrection | Δτcorrection | τn | Δτn |
| s | s | s | s | s | s | s | s | |
| A | 858.4 | 3.6 | 15.4 | 3.1 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 874.2 | 4.7 |
| B | 862.8 | 5.7 | 17.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 0.5 | 881.8 | 6.0 |
| C | 876.5 | 4.0 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 879.3 | 4.1 |
| Average | 878.1 | 2.8 | ||||||
| X2/dof | 0.58 | |||||||
FIG. 10.Overlay of the short (solid line) and long (dashed line), background subtracted four step unloading time distributions for 300 s cleaning using both the cleaner and the dagger, with the dagger lowered to 37 cm (left) and 25 cm (right). The numbers, 1-4, label the counting positions.
FIG. 11.A plot showing the measured lifetimes (dark grey) and corrected for marginally trapped UCN (light grey) for three different sets of runs: (A) one step counting, (B) two step counting, (C) two step counting with dagger cleaning.
Estimated systematic uncertainties not included in Table II.
| Effect | Upper bound (s) | Direction | Current eval. | Method of characterization |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Depolarization | 0.01 | + | Calculated | Theory |
| Microphonic heating | 0.1 | + | Simulated | Accelerometer studies |
| Dead time/pileup | 0.5 | ± | Simulated | Coincindence studies |
| Time dependent background | 0.1 | ± | Measured | Measurements |
| Gain drifts | 0.2 | ± | Measured | Measurements |
| Phase space evolution | 0.2 | ± | Measured | Measurements |
| Total | 0.6 | (Uncorrelated sum) |