Cold neutron beam studies of parity-violation in the n-α and n-p systems

Abstract

Long wavelength neutrons (λ>1 A) in a cold neutron beam provide a valuable probe to study the strong and weak nuclear forces in hadronic systems, where the description is complicated by the quark structure of the particles. As a consequence of parity-violation (PV) arising from the weak interaction, the low-energy neutron transverse spin-polarization vector rotates as the neutrons transverse a medium. The magnitude of the PV spin-rotation observable in the n-α system provides important new data to determine the strength of the neutron-nucleus weak interaction. Measurement of the spin-rotation in the bare neutron-proton system with a parahydrogen target, will provide important constraints on the weak nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction including the neutral current contribution, and will increase our understanding of the strong NN interaction. This paper will review the recent spin-rotation measurement in a liquid helium target, and the proposed measurement in a parahydrogen target.