Modelling the inverse Zeno effect for the neutron decay

TL;DR

This paper models the inverse Zeno effect to explain discrepancies in neutron lifetime measurements from beam and trap experiments, showing the effect's robustness across different measurement models.

Contribution

It introduces two models of measurement to analyze the inverse Zeno effect's role in neutron decay, demonstrating the effect's independence from measurement specifics.

Findings

Inverse Zeno effect can account for shorter neutron lifetimes in trap experiments.

The effect's magnitude is similar across different measurement models.

Results suggest measurement process details do not significantly alter the inverse Zeno effect.

Abstract

Beam and trap methods find incompatible results for the lifetime of the neutron: the former delivers a value which is about $8.7\pm2.1$ s longer than the latter. Very recently (1906.10024) it has been proposed that the inverse Zeno effect (IZE) could be responsible for the shorter lifetime in trap experiments. Here, we compare two different models of measurement, one obtained by bang-bang measurements and by a continuous measurement: the IZE turns out to be in both cases very similar, showing that the results do not depend on the details of the measurement process.