TY - JOUR
T1 - Measurement of the total neutron-scattering cross-section ratios of noble gases of natural isotopic composition using a pulsed neutron beam
AU - Haddock, Christopher C.
AU - Hiromoto, Masayuki
AU - Hirota, Katsuya
AU - Ino, Takashi
AU - Kitaguchi, Masaaki
AU - Mishima, Kenji
AU - Oi, Noriko
AU - Shima, Tatsushi
AU - Shimizu, Hirohiko M.
AU - Snow, W. Michael
AU - Yoshioka, Tamaki
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by MEXT KAKENHI Grant No. JP19GS0210 and JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. JP25800152. We thank the help given by Setsuo Sato for detector and software operation. Work at the facility of J-PARC was performed under an S-type project of KEK (Proposal No. 2014S03) and user programs (Proposal No. 2016B0212, 2016A0078, and 2015A0239). C.C.H. acknowledges support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. C.C.H. and W.M.S. acknowledge support from NSF Grants No. PHY-1614545, No. NSF-PHY-1614545, and No. NSF-PHY-1913789.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by MEXT KAKENHI Grant No. JP19GS0210 and JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. JP25800152. We thank the help given by Setsuo Sato for detector and software operation. Work at the facility of J-PARC was performed under an S-type project of KEK (Proposal No. 2014S03) and user programs (Proposal No. 2016B0212, 2016A0078, and 2015A0239). C.C.H. acknowledges support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. C.C.H. and W.M.S. acknowledge support from NSF Grants No. PHY-1614545, No. NSF-PHY-1614545, and No. NSF-PHY-1913789.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Physical Society.
PY - 2019/12/11
Y1 - 2019/12/11
N2 - Precision measurements of slow neutron cross sections with atoms have several scientific applications. In particular, the n-He4 s-wave scattering length is important to know both for helping to constrain the nuclear three-body interaction and for the proper interpretation of several ongoing slow neutron experiments searching for other types of neutron-atom interactions. We present new measurements of the ratios of the neutron differential scattering cross sections of the noble gases He, Ar, Kr, and Xe to Ne. All gases used were of natural isotopic abundance. These measurements were performed using a recently developed neutron-scattering apparatus for gas samples located on a pulsed slow neutron beamline which was designed to search for possible exotic neutron-atom interactions and employs both neutron time of flight information and a position-sensitive neutron detector for scattering event reconstruction. We found agreement with the literature values of scattering cross sections inferred from Ar/Ne, Kr/Ne, and Xe/Ne differential cross-section ratios over the q range of 1-7 nm-1. However, for the case of He/Ne we find that the cross section inferred differs by 11.3% (7.6σ) from previously reported values inferred from neutron phase-shift measurements, but is in reasonable agreement with values from other measurements. The very large discrepancy in the He/Ne ratio calls for a new precision measurement of the n-He4 scattering length using neutron interferometry.
AB - Precision measurements of slow neutron cross sections with atoms have several scientific applications. In particular, the n-He4 s-wave scattering length is important to know both for helping to constrain the nuclear three-body interaction and for the proper interpretation of several ongoing slow neutron experiments searching for other types of neutron-atom interactions. We present new measurements of the ratios of the neutron differential scattering cross sections of the noble gases He, Ar, Kr, and Xe to Ne. All gases used were of natural isotopic abundance. These measurements were performed using a recently developed neutron-scattering apparatus for gas samples located on a pulsed slow neutron beamline which was designed to search for possible exotic neutron-atom interactions and employs both neutron time of flight information and a position-sensitive neutron detector for scattering event reconstruction. We found agreement with the literature values of scattering cross sections inferred from Ar/Ne, Kr/Ne, and Xe/Ne differential cross-section ratios over the q range of 1-7 nm-1. However, for the case of He/Ne we find that the cross section inferred differs by 11.3% (7.6σ) from previously reported values inferred from neutron phase-shift measurements, but is in reasonable agreement with values from other measurements. The very large discrepancy in the He/Ne ratio calls for a new precision measurement of the n-He4 scattering length using neutron interferometry.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevC.100.064002
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevC.100.064002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85076470081
SN - 2469-9985
VL - 100
JO - Physical Review C
JF - Physical Review C
IS - 6
M1 - 064002
ER -