Measurement of Short Living Baryon Magnetic Moment using Bent Crystals at SPS and LHC

The magnetic moments of baryons containing u,d and s quarks have been extensively studied and measured. The experimental results are all obtained by a well-assessed method that consists in measuring the polarisation vector of the incoming particles and the precession angle when the particle is travelling through an intense magnetic field. The polarization is evaluated by analysing the angular distribution of the decay products. No measurement of magnetic moments of charm or beauty baryons (and τ leptons) has been performed so far. The main reason is the lifetimes of charm/beauty baryons, too short to measure the magnetic moment by standard techniques. Historically, the prediction of baryon magnetic moments was one of the striking successes of the quark model. The importance of the measurement of heavy quark magnetic moment is to test the possibility that the charmed and/or beauty quarks has an anomalous magnetic moment, arising if those quarks are composite objects. Measurements on magnetic moments of heavy quarks introduce new dimensions and should be accounted for by any comprehensive hadronic theory.