Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of New Mexico

Physics and Astronomy Colloquium

A Dark Baryon Explanation of The Neutron Decay Anomaly

Presented by Benjamin Grinstein, UCSD

In this talk I will first review a long-standing discrepancy between the neutron lifetime as measured in beam and in bottle experiments. If this discrepancy is not due to a systematic error, it may be due to novel mechanisms for neutron transmutation into new, as yet unknown elementary particles. These particles would be electrically neutral, or "dark". We will explain several scenarios for the possibility of neutron transmutation into dark particles. For example, in one interesting scenario the products of the neutron transmutation include a monochromatic photon with energy in the range 0.782 MeV - 1.664 MeV and this is predicted to occur in 1% of all neutron decays. We will describe recent theoretical developments as well as ongoing and planned experiments looking directly to establish or rule out the "dark decay" hypothesis.

3:30 pm, Friday, September 3, 2021
Zoom,

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A schedule of talks within the Department of Physics and Astronomy is available on the P&A web site at http://physics.unm.edu/pandaweb/events/index.php