Is the Unitarity of the Quark-Mixing CKM Matrix Violated in Neutron<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi mathvariant="italic">β</mml:mi></mml:math>-Decay?

Abstract

We report on a new measurement of neutron beta-decay asymmetry. From the result A(0) = -0.1189(7), we derive the ratio of the axial vector to the vector coupling constant lambda = g(A)/g(V) = -1.2739(19). When included in the world average for the neutron lifetime tau = 885.7(7) s, this gives the first element of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix V(ud). With this value and the Particle Data Group values for V(us) and V(ub), we find a deviation from the unitarity condition for the first row of the CKM matrix of Delta = 0.0083(28), which is 3.0 times the stated error.