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2018 UPDATE: The ILL between 2005 and 2018
temperatures and might have a strong impact on the world’s economy.
Neutrons and the Universe
Even the properties of the neutron itself continue to be studied at ILL. After many years of investigation there is no firm conclusion as to the value of the lifetime of the neutron (of order 15 minutes);
Fig. 11.10: GraviTrap, a gravitational trap for ultra cold neutrons (UCNs) for the measurement of the neutron lifetime. The bathtub like trap coated with a special grease impervious to UCNs is here in the bottom of the enveloping copper cylinder. The UCNs accumulate in the trap as the atoms of an heavy gas would due to gravity. The trap can be horizontally rotated to empty it by pouring out the UCNs. Serebrov A.P. et al., Phys. Rev. C97, 055503 (2018), DOI 10.1103/PhysRevC.97.055503
“disappearance” measurements using bottled ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) (Fig. 11.10) and decay rate measurements using neutron
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