The neutron distribution system of the new ultra-cold neutron source at the FRM II

Ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) are neutrons which are totally reflected from a given material surface. Typical energies of UCN are below 300 neV and velocities below 8 m/s. Thus they can be stored in material or magnetic bottles for several hundreds of seconds. As such, UCN are excellent laboratories to study fundamental parameters, e.g. the free neutron lifetime or the electric dipole moment of the neutron. The new UCN source foreseen at the FRM II will deliver high UCN densities to four experimental areas. Hence a mechanism to distribute as many UCN as possible to these areas is needed. We have developed a high efficiency UCN switch for this purpose. This talk reports about a series of measurements conducted with this switch. There have been three types of measurements, testing the transmission, storage and surface properties of the switch.