An exciting hint towards the solution of the neutron lifetime puzzle?

TL;DR

This paper explores the neutron lifetime puzzle by proposing that unobserved excited states of neutrons may explain discrepancies between different measurement methods.

Contribution

It introduces the hypothesis that excited neutron states could account for measurement differences and discusses conditions under which these states remain undetected.

Findings

Excited neutron states could influence lifetime measurements.

Certain properties of these states might explain why they are not yet observed.

The hypothesis offers a new perspective on the neutron lifetime discrepancy.

Abstract

We revisit the neutron lifetime puzzle, a discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the weak neutron decay. Since both types of measurements are realized at different times after the nuclear production of free neutrons, we argue that the existence of excited states could be responsible for the different lifetimes. We elaborate on the required properties of such states and under what circumstances it is possible that they have not been experimentally identified yet.