[Triumf-seminars] UBC Physics & Astronomy Colloquium today at 16:00

[postmaster@admin.triumf.ca]

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Date/Time: Thu 2005-11-10 at 16:00

Location:  UBC Hennings 201    

Speaker:   Glen Marshall (TRIUMF)

Title:     Pushing the Limits of Muon Decay with TWIST

Abstract: Muon decay offers an opportunity to test the standard electroweak model of particle physics in a purely leptonic situation where more ambiguous strong interaction physics is essentially absent. The TRIUMF Weak Interaction Symmetry Test (TWIST) is an experiment designed specifically to improve upon the characterization of energy and angle distributions of positrons from polarized positive muon decay. By doing so, we may reveal the degree to which parity violation is complete, and whether the muon really participates only as a left-handed entity.

Previous measurements have already demonstrated impressive precision near one part per thousand, so there are many challenges to the establishment of credible values with uncertainties up to an order of magnitude better. TWIST uses a polarized muon beam stopping at the center of a spectrometer consisting of a low mass, high precision array of planar drift chambers in a two tesla solenoidal field. After a description of the features of muon decay, especially those aspects which the experiment can illuminate, the talk will focus on the operation of the device and the methods which are used to extract the decay parameters in a reliable way. Systematic uncertainties are especially important, as they limit the final results.





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