The neutron lifetime puzzle - Contributions from Europe

The best experiments in the world cannot agree on how long free neutrons live before decaying into other particles. Two main types of experiments are underway: bottle-like traps count the number of neutrons that survive after various intervals of storage time, while beam experiments look for one of the particles into which neutrons decay. Resolving this question is vital to answering a number of fundamental questions in physics. Past, present and future experimental efforts to measure the lifetime of the free neutron in Europe will be presented.