We report the first measurement of the neutron cross section on argon in the energy range of 100-800 MeV. The measurement was obtained with a 4.3-hour exposure of the Mini-CAPTAIN detector to the WNR/LANSCE beam at LANL. The total cross section is measured from the attenuation coefficient of the neutron flux as it traverses the liquid argon volume. A set of 2,631 candidate interactions is divided in bins of the neutron kinetic energy calculated from time-of-flight measurements. These interactions are reconstructed with custom-made algorithms specifically designed for the data in a time projection chamber the size of the Mini-CAPTAIN detector. The energy averaged cross section is $0.91 pm{} 0.10~mathrm{(stat.)} pm{} 0.09~mathrm{(sys.)}~mathrm{barns}$. A comparison of the measured cross section is made to the GEANT4 and FLUKA event generator packages.
The use of argon as a detection and shielding medium for neutrino and dark matter experiments has made the precise knowledge of the cross section for neutron capture on argon an important design and operational parameter. Since previous measurements were averaged over thermal spectra and have significant disagreements, a differential measurement has been performed using a Time-Of-Flight neutron beam and a $sim$4$pi$ gamma spectrometer. A fit to the differential cross section from $0.015-0.15$,eV, assuming a $1/v$ energy dependence, yields $sigma^{2200} = 673 pm 26 text{ (stat.)} pm 59 text{ (sys.)}$,mb.
In a neutron lifetime measurement at the Japan Proton Accelerator Complex, the neutron lifetime is calculated by the neutron decay rate and the incident neutron flux. The flux is obtained due to counting the protons emitted from the neutron absorption reaction of ${}^{3}{rm He}$ gas, which is diluted in a mixture of working gas in a detector. Hence, it is crucial to determine the amount of ${}^{3}{rm He}$ in the mixture. In order to improve the accuracy of the number density of the ${}^{3}{rm He}$ nuclei, we suggested to use the ${}^{14}{rm N}({rm n},{rm p}){}^{14}{rm C}$ reaction as a reference because this reaction involves similar kinetic energy as the ${}^{3}{rm He}({rm n},{rm p}){}^{3}{rm H}$ reaction and a smaller reaction cross section to introduce reasonable large partial pressure. The uncertainty of the recommended value of the cross section, however, is not satisfied with our requirement. In this paper, we report the most accurate experimental value of the cross section of the ${}^{14}{rm N}({rm n},{rm p}){}^{14}{rm C}$ reaction at a neutron velocity of 2200 m/s, measured relative to the ${}^{3}{rm He}({rm n},{rm p}){}^{3}{rm H}$ reaction. The result was 1.868 $pm$ 0.003 (stat.) $pm$ 0.006 (sys.) b. Additionally, the cross section of the ${}^{17}{rm O}({rm n},{rm alpha}){}^{14}{rm C}$ reaction at the neutron velocity is also redetermined as 249 $pm$ 6 mb.
A new measurement of $Deltasigma_T$ for polarized neutrons transmitted through a polarized proton target at 16.2 MeV has been made. A polarized neutron beam was obtained from the $^{3}rm{H}(d,vec n)^{4}rm{He}$ reaction; proton polarization over 90% was achieved in a frozen spin target of 20 cm$^3$ volume. The measurement yielded the value $Deltasigma_T=(-126pm21pm14)$ mb. The result of a simple phase shift analysis for the $^3S_1-^3D_1$ mixing parameter $epsilon_1$ is presented and compared with the theoretical potential model predictions.
We present the result of an experiment to measure the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron at the Paul Scherrer Institute using Ramseys method of separated oscillating magnetic fields with ultracold neutrons (UCN). Our measurement stands in the long history of EDM experiments probing physics violating time reversal invariance. The salient features of this experiment were the use of a Hg-199 co-magnetometer and an array of optically pumped cesium vapor magnetometers to cancel and correct for magnetic field changes. The statistical analysis was performed on blinded datasets by two separate groups while the estimation of systematic effects profited from an unprecedented knowledge of the magnetic field. The measured value of the neutron EDM is $d_{rm n} = (0.0pm1.1_{rm stat}pm0.2_{rm sys})times10^{-26}e,{rm cm}$.
We report on the first cross section measurements for charged current coherent pion production by neutrinos and antineutrinos on argon. These measurements are performed using the ArgoNeuT detector exposed to the NuMI beam at Fermilab. The cross sections are measured to be $2.6^{+1.2}_{-1.0}(stat)^{+0.3}_{-0.4}(syst) times 10^{-38} textrm{cm}^{2}/textrm{Ar}$ for neutrinos at a mean energy of $9.6$ GeV and $5.5^{+2.6}_{-2.1}(stat)^{+0.6}_{-0.7}(syst) times 10^{-39} textrm{cm}^{2}/textrm{Ar}$ for antineutrinos at a mean energy of $3.6$ GeV.