Exciting hint toward the solution of the neutron lifetime puzzle

Abstract

We revisit the neutron lifetime puzzle, a discrepancy between beam and bottle measurements of the weak neutron decay. Since both types of measurements are realized at different times after the nuclear production of free neutrons, we argue that the existence of excited states could be responsible for the different lifetimes. We elaborate on the required properties of such states and under what circumstances it is possible that these states have not been experimentally identified yet.