2008

More about neutron - mirror neutron oscillation

Berezhiani, Zurab

Understand

It was pointed out recently that oscillation of the neutron $n$ into mirror neutron $n'$, a sterile twin of the neutron with exactly the same mass, could be a very fast process with the the baryon number violation, even faster than the neutron decay itself.

  • This process is sensitive to the magnetic fields and it could be observed by comparing the neutron lose rates in the UCN storage chambers for different magnetic backgrounds.
  • We calculate the probability of $n-n'$ oscillation in the case when a mirror magnetic field $\vec{B}'$ is non-zero and show that in this case it can be suppressed or resonantly enhanced by applying the ordinary magnetic field $\vec{B}$, depending on its strength and on its orientation with respect to $\vec{B}'$.
  • The recent experimental data, under this hypothesis, still allow the $n-n'$ oscillation time order 1 s or even smaller.

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