A clean, bright, and versatile source of neutron decay products

We present a case study on a new type of beam station for the measurement of angular correlations in the P-decay of free neutrons. This beam station, called proton and electron radiation channel (PERC), is a cold-neutron guide that delivers at its open end, instead of neutrons, a beam of electrons and protons from neutron decays that take place far inside the guide. These charged neutron-decay products are magnetically guided to the end of the neutron guide, where they are separated from the cold-neutron beam. In this way, a general-purpose source of neutron decay products is obtained which can be operated as a user facility for a variety of different experiments in neutron decay correlation spectroscopy that may be installed at this beam station. The angular distribution of the emitted charged particles depends on the magnetic field configuration and can be chosen freely, according to the need of the experiment being carried out. A gain in phase space density of several orders of magnitude can be achieved with PERC, as compared to existing neutron decay spectrometers. Detailed calculations show that the spectra and angular distributions of the emerging electrons and protons will be distortion- and background-free on the level of 10(-4), more than 10 times better than that achieved today. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.