Performance of the upgraded ultracold neutron source at Los Alamos National Laboratory and its implication for a possible neutron electric dipole moment experiment
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA (United States)
- Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble (France)
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
- Joint Institute of Nuclear Research, Dubna, Moscow Region (Russia)
- Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States)
We report the ultracold neutron (UCN) source at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which uses solid deuterium as the UCN converter and is driven by accelerator spallation neutrons, has been successfully operated for over 10 years, providing UCN to various experiments, as the first production UCN source based on the superthermal process. It has recently undergone a major upgrade. This paper describes the design and performance of the upgraded LANL UCN source. Measurements of the cold neutron spectrum and UCN density are presented and compared to Monte Carlo predictions. The source is shown to perform as modeled. The UCN density measured at the exit of the biological shield was 184(32) UCN / cm3, a fourfold increase from the highest previously reported. Finally, the polarized UCN density stored in an external chamber was measured to be 39(7) UCN / cm3, which is sufficient to perform an experiment to search for the nonzero neutron electric dipole moment with a one-standard-deviation sensitivity of σ(dn) = 3 × 10-27 e cm.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396; FG02-97ER41042; 20140015DR; AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1422926
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1418395; OSTI ID: 1481656
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-17-29313; PRVCAN; TRN: US1801672
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review C, Vol. 97, Issue 1; ISSN 2469-9985
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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