No Arabic abstract
We have searched for a short-range spin-dependent interaction using the spin relaxation of hyperpolarized $^3$He. Such a new interaction would be mediated by a hypothetical light scalar boson with CP-violating couplings to the neutron. The walls of the $^3$He cell would generate a pseudomagnetic field and induce an extra depolarization channel. We did not see any anomalous spin relaxation and we report the limit for interaction ranges $lambda$ between $1$ and $100~rm{mu m}$: $g_sg_p lambda ^2 leq 2.6times 10^{-28}~mathrm{m^2}, ( 95~%, mathrm{C.L.})$, where $g_s$($g_p$) are the (pseudo)scalar coupling constant, improving the previous best limit by 1 order of magnitude.
We have searched for a short-range spin-dependent interaction mediated by a hypothetical light scalar boson with CP-violating couplings to the neutron using the spin relaxation of hyperpolarized $^3$He. The walls of the $^3$He cell would generate a depolarizing pseudomagnetic field.
Measuring the depolarization rate of a $^3$He hyperpolarized gas is a sensitive method to probe hypothetical short-range spin-dependent forces. A dedicated experiment is being set up at the Institute Laue Langevin in Grenoble to improve the sensitivity. We presented the status of the experiment at the 10th PATRAS Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs.
We propose a new method to detect short-range textit{P-} and textit{T-} violating interactions between nucleons, based on measuring the precession frequency shift of polarized $^3$He nuclei in the presence of an unpolarized mass. To maximize the sensitivity, a high-pressure $^3$He cell with thin glass windows (250 $rmmu m$) is used to minimize the distance between the mass and $^3$He. The magnetic field fluctuation is suppressed by using the $^3$He gas in a different region of the cell as a magnetometer. Systematic uncertainties from the magnetic properties of the mass are suppressed by flipping both the magnetic field and spin directions. Without any magnetic shielding, our result has already reached the sensitivity of the current best limit. With improvement in uniformity and stability of the field, we can further improve the sensitivity by two orders of magnitude over the force range from $10^{-4}-10^{-2}$ m.
Significant progress has been made to experimentally determine a complete set of the parity-violating (PV) weak-interaction amplitudes between nucleons. In this paper we describe the design, construction and operation of the n$^3$He experiment that was used to measure the PV asymmetry $A_{mathrm{PV}}$ in the direction of proton emission in the reaction $vec{mathrm{n}} + {^3}mathrm{He} rightarrow {^3}mathrm{H} + mathrm{p}$, using the capture of polarized cold neutrons in an unpolarized gaseous $^3mathrm{He}$ target. This asymmetry has was recently calculated cite{Viviani,Viviani2}, both in the traditional style meson exchange picture, and in effective field theory (EFT), including two-pion exchange. The high precision result (published separately) obtained with the experiment described herein forms an important benchmark for hadronic PV (HPV) theory in few-body systems, where precise calculations are possible. To this day, HPV is still one of the most poorly understood aspects of the electro-weak theory. The calculations estimate the size of the asymmetry to be in the range of $(-9.4 rightarrow 3.5)times 10^{-8}$, depending on the framework or model. The small size of the asymmetry and the small overall goal uncertainty of the experiment of $delta A_{mathrm{PV}} simeq 1times10^{-8}$ places strict requirements on the experiment, especially on the design of the target-detector chamber. In this paper we describe the experimental setup and the measurement methodology as well as the detailed design of the chamber, including results of Garfield++ and Geant4 simulations that form the basis of the chamber design and analysis. We also show data from commissioning and production and define the systematic errors that the chamber contributes to the measured $A_{mathrm{PV}}$. We give the final uncertainty on the measurement.
We have constrained possible new interactions which produce nonrelativistic potentials between polarized neutrons and unpolarized matter proportional to $alphavec{sigma}cdotvec{v}$ where $vec{sigma}$ is the neutron spin and $vec{v}$ is the relative velocity. We use existing data from laboratory measurements on the very long $T_{1}$ and $T_{2}$ spin relaxation times of polarized $^{3}$He gas in glass cells.Using the best available measured $T_{2}$ of polarized $^{3}$He gas atoms as the polarized source and the earth as an unpolarized source, we obtain constraints on two new interactions. We present a new experimental upper bound on possible vector-axial-vector($V_{VA}$) type interactions for ranges between $1sim10^{8}$m. In combination with previous results, we set the most stringent experiment limits on $g_{V}g_{A}$ ranging from $simmu$m to $sim10^{8}$m. We also report what is to our knowledge the first experimental upper limit on the possible torsion fields induced by the earth on its surface. Dedicated experiments could further improve these bounds by a factor of $sim100$. Our method of analysis also makes it possible to probe many velocity dependent interactions which depend on the spins of both neutrons and other particles which have never been searched for before experimentally.