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Project

The beta-neutrino correlation for 35Ar measured with WITCH.

The fundamental forces which govern the atomic nucleus offer us deep insight into our physical world. While particle colliders such as the LHC at CERN search directly for new exotic particles at high energy by attempting to create them directly in proton-proton collisions, an alternative approach is to measure certain nuclear process very precisely, such as the decay of radioactive isotopes, and compare the findings with the predictions from the so-called "Standard Model". A deviation in the findings could signal some new physics, such as a new exotic particle not currently accounted for in the standard theory. However, in order to make reliable conclusions from such data, the measurements themselves must not only be very precise, but they must also be very accurate. One of the most important components of any project such as this is thus to properly characterize your apparatus and be confident that all the uncertainties you assign to any measured quantities are both reliable and realistic. The next phase of this project will focus primarily on this aspect of these types of measurements, whereby the experimental apparatus is carefully characterized and any unknowns are quantified via further offline measurements in addition to detailed analysis of the existing data sets which have been collected during the last experiment performed with this apparatus.

Date:1 Oct 2013 →  30 Sep 2016
Keywords:WITCH, The beta-neutrino
Disciplines:Classical physics, Elementary particle and high energy physics, Other physical sciences