https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202430305001
Study of neutron beta decay with the Nab experiment
1 Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904–4714, USA
2 Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
4 Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287–1504, USA
5 Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202, USA
6 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
7 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
8 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
9 Department of Physics, Geosciences, and Astronomy, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY 40475, USA
10 Department of Physics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Canada
11 Department of Chemistry and Physics, MC 2252, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN 37403, USA
12 LPC Caen, ENSICAEN, Université de Caen, CNRS/IN2P3, Caen, France
13 PACE, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
14 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
15 Department of Physics, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B2E9, Canada
16 Department of Physics, Centre College of Kentucky, Danville, KY 40422
* e-mail: baessler@virginia.edu
Published online: 25 September 2024
The current three sigma tension in the unitarity test of the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix is a notable problem with the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. A long-standing goal of the study of free neutron beta decay is to better determine the CKM element Vud through measurements of the neutron lifetime and a decay correlation parameter. The Nab collaboration intends to measure a, the neutrino-electron correlation, with accuracy sufficient for a competitive evaluation of Vud based on neutron decay data alone. This paper gives a status report and an outlook.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024
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