Neutron Decay Outside of a Nucleus Near Absolute Zero

[Chris Nimmons]

Does neutron decay outside of the nucleus occur faster, slower, or at the same speed when the environment it is in is near absolute zero? Do any external factors affect the speed of a neutron decaying?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Same speed.

 

[vanhees71]

Depends on the temperature. At $k_{\text{B}} T \simeq 160 \; \text{MeV}$ all hadrons undergo a cross-over transition to a strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (at $mu_{\text{B}}=0$). Then parton-like quasiparticles become the relevant degrees of freedom, and no neutrons nor other hadrons exist (except in terms of resonance-like correlations).

 

[DennisN]

Does neutron decay outside of the nucleus occur faster, slower, or at the same speed when the environment it is in is near absolute zero?

I think that is a good and interesting question which I personally haven't thought about before.

Do any external factors affect the speed of a neutron decaying?

I have a slight recollection of that the decay can be temporarily halted in some way, but I don't know at the moment if I remember correctly. I will look around on the net for it, and I'll be back...

Edit:

It was the quantum Zeno effect I was thinking about, which has been demonstrated for atoms;

Fischer, Gutiérrez-Medina, Raizen, "Observation of the Quantum Zeno and Anti-Zeno Effects in an Unstable System" (Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 040402 – Published 10 July 2001)
PRL: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.040402
Arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0104035

I don't remember at the moment if it can be done or has been demonstrated with free neutrons.