A modular apparatus for use in high-precision measurements of parity violation in polarized eV neutron transmission

D. C. Schaper, C. Auton, L. Barrón-Palos, M. Borrego, A. Chavez, L. Cole, C. B. Crawford, J. Curole, H. Dhahri, K. A. Dickerson, J. Doskow, W. Fox, M. H. Gervais, B. M. Goodson, K. Knickerbocker, C. Jiang, P. M. King, H. Lu, M. Mocko, D. Olivera-VelardeJ. G. Otero Munoz, S. I. Penttilä, A. Pérez-Martín, B. Short, W. M. Snow, K. Steffen, J. Vanderwerp, G. Visser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

We describe a modular apparatus for use in parity-violation measurements in epithermal neutron–nucleus resonances with high instantaneous neutron fluxes at the Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This apparatus is designed to conduct high-precision measurements of the parity-odd transmission asymmetry of longitudinally polarized neutrons through targets containing nuclei with p-wave neutron–nucleus resonances in the 0.1–10 eV energy regime and to accommodate a future search for time reversal violation in polarized neutron transmission through polarized nuclear targets. The apparatus consists of an adjustable neutron and gamma collimation system, a 3He-4He ion chamber neutron flux monitor, two identical cryostats for target cooling, an adiabatic eV-neutron spin flipper, a near-unit efficiency 6Li-7Li scintillation detector operated in current mode, a flexible CAEN data acquisition system, and a neutron spin filter based on spin-exchange optical pumping of 3He gas. We describe the features of the apparatus design devoted to the suppression of systematic errors in parity-odd asymmetry measurements. We describe the configuration of the apparatus used to conduct a precision measurement of parity violation at the 0.7 eV p-wave resonance in 139La which employs two identical 139La targets, one to polarize the beam on the p-wave resonance using the weak interaction and one to analyze the polarization.

Original languageEnglish
Article number163961
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Volume969
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 21 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Award Number DE-SC-0014622. D. Schaper would also like to acknowledge support by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, USA under Grant Number 1247392. The work of C. Auton, J. Curole, J. Doskow, W. Fox, H. Lu, W. M. Snow. K. Steffen, J Vanderwerp, B. Short, and G. Visser was supported by NSF, USAPHY-1614545, NSF, USAPHY-1913789, and the Indiana University Center for Spacetime Symmetries. J. Curole also acknowledges support from the GAANN fellowship program of the US Department of Education and the Department of Energy SCGSR program, USA. L. Cole and D. Olivera would like to acknowledge funding from the KY-NSF EPSCoR Research Scholar Program. B.M. Goodson acknowledges funding from NSF, USA (CHE-1905341), DoD, USA (W81XWH-15-1-0272), and a Cottrell SEED Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. We gratefully acknowledge the local support of the LANSCE neutron facility at Los Alamos National Lab where this measurement was performed. Test measurements for the current mode detector electronics used for this work were conducted in part on the NOBORU instrument at the JPARC MLF through proposal 2016B0021, Characterization of High Counting Rate Epithermal Neutron Detectors

FundersFunder number
JPARC MLF
Research Corporation for Science Advancement
U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory U.S. Department of Energy National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
U.S. Department of Education, OSERS
National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering
Indiana University Center for Spacetime Symmetries
U.S. Department of DefenseW81XWH-15-1-0272
KY-NSF-EPSCoRCHE-1905341
U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China1247392, USA PHY-1614545, USA PHY-1913789, 1913789
Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear EngineeringDE-SC-0014622

    Keywords

    • Fundamental symmetry
    • Neutron resonance
    • Parity violation
    • Scintillator detector
    • Time reversal violation

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
    • Instrumentation

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