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PF2

Ultracold neutrons with wavelengths around 1000 Å have several unique features: one of them is that they are totally reflected from the surface of most materials under any angle of incidence. This offers the possibility of storing neutrons in so called neutron bottles (or traps) for the observation of several fundamental characteristics of the neutron itself.

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Applications

  • the search for a neutron electric dipole moment;
  • neutron beta decay studies in a magnetic traps as well as in liquid and solid wall traps;
  • gravitationally bound quantum states;
  • UCN spectroscopy and diffractometry and optics;
  • VCN interferometry;
  • UCN quasielastic heating studies;
  • the development of a neutron microscope and UCN monochromators, etc;
  • investigation of materials suited in UCN experiments

Performance of the neutron turbine

The scheme of the neutron turbine is shown in the figure on the left.

The figure below shows time-of-flight data for the UCN turbine plotted as a function of axial velocity v using the setup shown above. The weak dependence of the UCN output on position and on angle α is typical for the turbine. The spectral cutoff depends clearly on α. The dashed-dotted curve refers to the Maxwell spectrum at the turbine blade ends (up to a lateral velocity of 6.2 m s-1).

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