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Session AD - Beta Decay.
MIXED session, Monday afternoon, October 06
Empress B, Chateau Whistler

[AD.02] Time Reversal in Polarized Neutron Decay---A Progress Report on the emiT Experiment

T.D. Steiger, M.C. Browne, S.R. Elliott, R.G.H. Robertson, J.F. Wilkerson (University of Washington), J. Anaya, T.J. Bowles, G.L. Greene, W.A. Teasdale (Los Alamos National Laboratory), J. Adams, M.S. Dewey, D. Gilliam, G.L. Jones, J.S. Nico, A.K. Thompson, F.E. Wietfeldt (National Institute of Standards and Technology), S.J. Freedman, B.K. Fujikawa, L.J. Lising, E.G. Wasserman (University of California at Berkeley / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), K.P. Coulter, T.E. Chupp, S.-R. Hwang (University of Michigan), A. Garcia (University of Notre Dame)

The theory of neutron beta decay provides for the possibility of a violation of time-reversal (T) invariance due to the presence of a manifestly T-odd term. This term is a triple correlation involving the neutron spin and the momenta of the electron and neutrino decay products. The degree of correlation (usually denoted by the coefficient D) is determined by studying the decays of free, polarized neutrons in which the beta-decay electrons are detected in coincidence with recoil protons. The first run of the emiT experiment occurred from Dec. 1996 through most of 1997 at the Cold Neutron Research Facility, NIST. The target sensitivity to D is <10^-3, which may begin to restrict several extensions to the Standard Model that allow values of D in that range. Data from the first run will be discussed.

Part A of program listing