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We report a new measurement of the neutron lifetime using ultra-cold neutrons stored in a magneto-gravitational trap made of permanent magnets. Neutrons surviving in the trap after fixed storage times have been counted and the trap losses have continuously been monitored during storage by detecting neutrons leaking from the trap. The value of the neutron lifetime resulting from this measurement is $\tau_n=(878.3\pm1.9)$s. It is the most precise measurement of the neutron lifetime obtained with magnetically stored neutrons., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

The WWR-M reactor of PNPI offers a unique opportunity to prepare a source for ultracold neutrons (UCN) in an environment of high neutron flux (about 3*10^12 n/cm^2/s) at still acceptable radiation heat release (about 4*10^-3 W/g). It can be realized within the reactor thermal column situated close to the reactor core. With its large diameter of 1 m, this channel allows to install a 15 cm thick bismuth shielding, a graphite premoderator (300 dm^3 at 20 K), and a superfluid helium converter (35 dm^3). At a temperature of 1.2 K it is possible to remove the heat release power of about 20 W. Using the 4pi flux of cold neutrons within the reactor column can bring more than a factor 100 of cold neutron flux incident on the superfluid helium with respect to the present cold neutron beam conditions at the ILL reactor. The storage lifetime for UCN in superfluid He at 1.2 K is about 30 s, which is sufficient when feeding experiments requiring a similar filling time. The calculated density of UCN with energy between 50 neV and 250 neV in an experimental volume of 40 liters is about 10^4 n/cm^3. Technical solutions for realization of the project are discussed., Comment: 10 pages, more details

A method and codes for two-step correlation calculation of heavy-atom molecules have been developed, employing the generalized relativistic effective core potential and relativistic coupled cluster (RCC) methods at the first step, followed by nonvariational one-center restoration of proper four-component spinors in the heavy cores. Electron correlation is included for the first time in an ab initio calculation of the interaction of the permanent P,T-odd proton electric dipole moment with the internal electromagnetic field in a molecule. The calculation is performed for the ground state of TlF at the experimental equilibrium, R_e=2.0844 A, and at R=2.1 A, with spin-orbit and correlation effects included by RCC. Calculated results with single cluster amplitudes only are in good agreement (3% and 1%) with recent Dirac-Hartree-Fock (DHF) values of the magnetic parameter M; the larger differences occurring between present and DHF volume parameter (X) values, as well as between the two DHF calculations, are explained. Inclusion of electron correlation by GRECP/RCC with single and double excitations has a major effect on the P,T-odd parameters, decreasing M by 17% and X by 22%., Comment: 5 pages, REVTeX4 style Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.Letters

We reduce CR-structures on smooth elliptic and hyperbolic manifolds of CR-codimension 2 to parallelisms thus solving the problem of global equivalence for such manifolds. The parallelism that we construct is defined on a sequence of two principal bundles over the manifold, takes values in the Lie algebra of infinitesimal automorphisms of the quadric corresponding to the Levi form of the manifold, and behaves ``almost'' like a Cartan connection. The construction is explicit and allows us to study the properties of the parallelism as well as those of its curvature form. It also leads to a natural class of ``semi-flat'' manifolds for which the two bundles reduce to a single one and the parallelism turns into a true Cartan connection. In addition, for real-analytic manifolds we describe certain local normal forms that do not require passing to bundles, but in many ways agree with the structure of the parallelism., Comment: 42 pages, see also http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/research.reports/97mrr.html

We show that the maximal prolongation of a certain algebra associated with a non-degenerate Hermitian form on ${\Bbb C}^n\times{\Bbb C}^n$ with values in ${\Bbb R}^k$ is canonically isomorphic to the Lie algebra of infinitesimal holomorphic automorphisms of the corresponding quadric in ${\Bbb C}^{n+k}$. This fact creates a link between different approaches to the equivalence problem for Levi-nondegenerate strongly uniform CR-manifolds., Comment: 16 pages, see also http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/research.reports/98mrr.html