ASTRA (reactor)

The Adapted swimming pool - tank reactor Austria ( ASTRA ) was a research reactor, which was built and operated on the premises of the Austrian Reactor Centre Seibersdorf ( south-east of Vienna) as part of today's Austrian Institute of Technology. He was from 1960 to 1999 in function.

Time

Research

To elaborate the physical experiments, which were carried out on ASTRA reactor includes the neutron decay experiment. Here was the spectrum of recoil protons resulting from the decay of the neutron, measured; the center of a highly evacuated tangential beam tube of the reactor served as a neutron source. The aim of the experiment was to determine the ratio of the two coupling constants gA and gV the weak interaction of the shape of the spectrum of recoil protons. This spectrum was analyzed using an electrostatic spectrometer; the count of the protons was made by an ion -electron converter.

The result was | gA / gV | = 1.259 ± 0.017. This is in good agreement with the latest - much closer - MittelwertgA / gV = - 1.2695 ± 0.0029, which was measured by polarized neutrons and therefore also contains the sign.