66 research outputs found
New experimental limit on Pauli Exclusion Principle violation by electrons (the VIP experiment)
The Pauli Exclusion Principle is one of the basic principles of modern
physics and is at the very basis of our understanding of matter: thus it is
fundamental importance to test the limits of its validity. Here we present the
VIP (Violation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle) experiment, where we search
for anomalous X-rays emitted by copper atoms in a conductor: any detection of
these anomalous X-rays would mark a Pauli-forbidden transition. ] VIP is
currently taking data at the Gran Sasso underground laboratories, and its
scientific goal is to improve by at least four orders of magnitude the previous
limit on the probability of Pauli violating transitions, bringing it into the
10**-29 - 10**-30 region. First experimental results, together with future
plans, are presented.Comment: To appear in proceedings of the XLVI International Winter Meeting on
Nuclear Physics, Bormio, Italy, January 20-26, 200
New experimental limit on Pauli Exclusion Principle violation by electrons (the VIP experiment)
The Pauli exclusion principle (PEP) represents one of the basic principles of
modern physics and, even if there are no compelling reasons to doubt its
validity, it still spurs a lively debate, because an intuitive, elementary
explanation is still missing, and because of its unique stand among the basic
symmetries of physics. A new limit on the probability that PEP is violated by
electrons was estabilished by the VIP (VIolation of the Pauli exclusion
principle) Collaboration, using the method of searching for PEP forbidden
atomic transitions in copper. The preliminary value, {1/2}\beta^{2} \textless
4.5\times 10^{-28}, represents an improvement of about two orders of magnitude
of the previous limit. The goal of VIP is to push this limit at the level of
.Comment: submitted to Journal of Physics: Conference Series, by the Institute
of Physic
A New Measurement of Kaonic Hydrogen X rays
The system at threshold is a sensitive testing ground for low
energy QCD, especially for the explicit chiral symmetry breaking. Therefore, we
have measured the -series x rays of kaonic hydrogen atoms at the DANE
electron-positron collider of Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, and have
determined the most precise values of the strong-interaction energy-level shift
and width of the atomic state. As x-ray detectors, we used large-area
silicon drift detectors having excellent energy and timing resolution, which
were developed especially for the SIDDHARTA experiment. The shift and width
were determined to be eV and
eV, respectively. The new
values will provide vital constraints on the theoretical description of the
low-energy interaction.Comment: 5 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
The DEAR experiment on DAΦNE
DEAR is one of the first experiments at the new DAΦNE Ø-factory at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell'INFN. The objective of the DEAR experiment is to perform a precision measurement of the strong interaction shifts and widths of the K-series lines in kaonic hydrogen and the first observation of the same quantities in kaonic deuterium. The aim is to obtain a precise determination of the isospin-dependent kaon-nucleon scattering lengths which will represent a breakthrough in KN low-energy phenomenology and will allow us to determine the kaon-nucleon sigma terms. The sigma terms give a direct measurement of chiral symmetry breaking and are connected to the strangeness content of the proton. First results on background measurements with the DEAR NTP setup installed on DAΦNE are reported
First measurement of kaonic helium-3 X-rays
The first observation of the kaonic 3He 3d - 2p transition was made using
slow K- mesons stopped in a gaseous 3He target. The kaonic atom X-rays were
detected with large-area silicon drift detectors using the timing information
of the K+K- pairs of phi-meson decays produced by the DAFNE e+e- collider. The
strong interaction shift of the kaonic 3He 2p state was determined to be -2+-2
(stat)+-4 (syst) eV.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.
Low-energy kaon-nucleon/nuclei interaction studies at DAΦNE (SIDDHARTA and AMADEUS experiments)
The DAΦNE electron-positron collider at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of INFN has made available a unique-quality low-energy negative-kaons “beam”. The SIDDHARTA experiment used this beam to perform unprecedented
precision measurements on kaonic atoms, while the AMADEUS experiment plans to perform in the coming years precision measurements on kaon-nuclei interactions at low-energies, in particular to study the kaonic nuclei. The two experiments are briefly presented in this paper
Measurements of the strong-interaction widths of the kaonic 3He and 4He 2p levels
The kaonic 3He and 4He X-rays emitted in the 3d-2p transitions were measured
in the SIDDHARTA experiment. The widths of the kaonic 3He and 4He 2p states
were determined to be Gamma_2p(3He) = 6 \pm 6 (stat.) \pm 7 (syst.) eV, and
Gamma_2p(4He) = 14 \pm 8 (stat.) \pm 5 (syst.) eV, respectively. Both results
are consistent with the theoretical predictions. The width of kaonic 4He is
much smaller than the value of 55 \pm 34 eV determined by the experiments
performed in the 70's and 80's, while the width of kaonic 3He was determined
for the first time.Comment: Accepted in Phys. Lett.
Determination of scattering lengths from measurement of atom lifetime
The DIRAC experiment at CERN has achieved a sizeable production of
atoms and has significantly improved the precision on its lifetime
determination. From a sample of 21227 atomic pairs, a 4% measurement of the
S-wave scattering length difference
has been attained, providing an important test of Chiral Perturbation Theory.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
- …