Date: Wednesday 2nd March 2005
Title: New Measurements of Muon Decay with TWIST
Speaker: Dr Glen Marshall (TRIUMF Vancouver)
Abstract
The TRIUMF Weak Interaction Symmetry Test (TWIST) has recently
completed its first physics analyses. The results represent a
significant increase in precision for two of the four Michel
parameters describing the energy and angle distributions of
positrons from polarized positive muon decay. This is the first
step toward our eventual goal of improving upon previous
determinations for three of the parameters by at least an order
of magnitude, as a test the Standard Model in the purely leptonic
decay interaction.
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. 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
will limit the final results.