Development of UCN sources at PNPI

Abstract

This article reviews the development of various sources for ultracold neutrons (UCNs) at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI). For 45 years, PNPI has proposed and manufactured cryogenic devices for neutron conversion to low energies. Based on beryllium, hydrogen and deuterium, they can be operated in the intense radiation fields near the core of a nuclear reactor. A more recently launched UCN source development utilizes superfluid helium (He-II) as conversion medium. Initially proposed and designed for PNPI’s old WWR-M reactor, the project has been reshaped to equip the institute’s PIK reactor with a modern UCN source of this type. The projected UCN density in the closed source chamber is 2.2 × 103 cm−3, which, as calculations of neutron transport show, will provide 200 cm−3 in the chambers of a neutron EDM spectrometer connected to the source by a UCN guide. Experiments at PNPI with a full-scale UCN source model have demonstrated that a heat load of 60 W can be removed from the He-II in the converter at a temperature of 1.37 K. This fact confirms the practical possibility to implement low-temperature converters under “in-pile” conditions with large heat inflows. The review concludes with a presentation of various proposed options for a He-II based UCN source at the European Spallation Source.