Study of neutron-nuclear spin correlation term with a polarized Xe target

Sakai, Kenji; Oku, Takayuki; Okudaira, Takuya; Kai, Tetsuya; Harada, Masahide; Hiroi, Kosuke; Hayashida, Hirotoshi*; Kakurai, Kazuhisa*; Shimizu, Hirohiko*; Hirota, Katsuya*; et al.

JPS Conference Proceedings (Internet), 33, p.011116_1 - 011116_6, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSCP.33.011116

In neutron fundamental physics, study of correlation term of a neutron spin and a target nuclear spin is important because term interferes to parity non-conserving (PNC) and time reversal non-conserving terms. For this study, a xenon (Xe) is an interesting nucleus because it has been observed an enhancement of PNC effect around neutron resonance peaks, and polarizes up to by using a spin exchange optical pumping (SEOP) method. We would plan to develop a polarized Xe gas target with a compact in-situ SEOP system, and to study term by utilizing epithermal neutron beams supplied from a high intense pulsed spallation neutron source. As the first step, we attempted to measure neutron polarizing ability caused by term at a 9.6 eV s-wave resonance peak of Xe at BL10 in MLF, by detecting change of ratio between neutron transmissions with the polarized and unpolarized Xe target. After demonstrating that our apparatus could detect small change () of neutron transmissions caused by Doppler broadening effect, a signified value of has been obtained as preliminary results. For analyzing the obtained in detail, we are improving our nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance systems for evaluating Xe polarization independently of neutron beams.