Speaker
Description
Precision measurements of the β-energy spectrum in nuclear and neutron decays have a great potential to find possible signatures of new physics beyond the standard electroweak model. Such signatures would produce a distortion of the β-energy spectrum relative to the Standard Model prediction. In Gamow-Teller transitions, these distortions would indicate the presence of the exotic tensor type interactions. An interesting candidate for this study is 6He because the simplicity of its decay and other nuclear properties allow an accurate theoretical description of the spectrum shape.
At the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory we have used a calorimetric technique for measuring the shape of the β-energy spectrum in 6He decay. The radioactive ions were implanted into the active volume of a detector; this eliminates the critical instrumental effect related to the backscattering of β particles. The first goal of the experiment is to determine the weak magnetism form factor which has never been measured in 6He decay. The presentation reports the status of the data analysis, focusing on the study of the main systematic effects, as well as the projected sensitivity of the first measurement.
Acknowledgement: this work is supported by the National Science Foundation (US) under grant number PHY-11-02511.
