Precison Measurements of ⁸B Beta Decay: Solar Neutrinos and Physics Beyond the Standard Model

The beta decay of ⁸B provides exceptional sensitivity to physics beyond the Standard Model and is the dominant source of the high-energy neutrinos generated in the Sun and observed on Earth. A high-statistics experiment was performed at Argonne National Laboratory using the Beta-decay Paul Trap (BPT) surrounded by four double-sided silicon strip detectors to measure alpha and beta particle energies from the beta decay of ⁸B to ⁸Be, which breaks up into two alpha particles. Through precise measurements of the kinematics of the decay products, limits on the exotic tensor current contribution to the weak interaction can be determined. Additionally, the decay product kinematics can be leveraged to reconstruct the undistorted ⁸B neutrino energy spectrum, a necessary ingredient for experiments aiming to precisely measure solar neutrino oscillations. Preliminary results for both the tensor current limit and the neutrino spectrum will be presented.