Atomic Effects in Tritium Beta Decay and Their Role in Determining the Ratio G_A/G_V and the Lifetime of the Free Neutron

摘要

The helium-isotope mass-spectroscopy method for measuring the triton decay constant for various cases of the electron environment was used to determine the tritium half-life without allowance for decay to beta-electron bound states and to calculate the respective reduced half-life, which proved to be (fT_(1/2))t = 1129.6 ± 3.0 s. The equations relating fT_(1/2) to G_A/G_V made it possible to obtain the value of (G_A/G_V)t = -1.2646 ± 0.0035 and to estimate the neutron lifetime at n=890.3±3.9(stat.) ± 1.4(syst.) s.