Los Alamos Tau Experiment

Level of Education of Students Involved

Undergraduate

Faculty Sponsor

Shirvel Stanislaus

College

College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)

Discipline(s)

Physics

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 4-30-2026

Abstract

The UCNτ+ experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is designed to measure the lifetime of a neutron to a precision of ±0.1 seconds. The current best lifetime measurement of 877.83±0.3 seconds was obtained by the LANL UCNτ experiment. The current experimental setup consists of a magnetic chamber in which a known number of ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) is placed and counted after a specified duration. The magnetic chamber takes advantage of the magnetic moment and intrinsic spin of neutrons, thereby reducing the neutrons' energy and, consequently, the systematic error of the experiment. To further enhance the effectiveness of this setup, only neutrons of the correct spin must be sent into the chamber. Last summer, I conducted research on the UCNτ+ experiment at LANL, where I designed, built, and tested a device that could be attached to the beamline, sending neutrons into the chamber and measuring how many of them have the wrong spin. My device used silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), paired with boron-coated zinc sulfide scintillators, to convert neutrons into a usable electrical signal via a series of reactions. The design of this prototype will be presented.

Biographical Information about Author(s)

I am a mechanical engineering and physics double major. I became interested in the topic after hearing the students from the previous summer present on it in colloquium. I plan to apply my degrees to a career in the aerospace industry.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS