The goal of the nEDM@SNS experiment at the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source is to make the world’s best measurement of the neutron’s electric dipole moment, improving the current precision by two orders of magnitude.
Is the neutron round? If not, so what?
It turns out that the “roundness” of the neutron’s electric charge distribution (measured by the electric dipole moment) is connected at a deep level to a rather fundamental question – “Why is there any matter in the Universe?”
Matter and anti-matter were created in equal amounts during the Big Bang. Almost all of it (all but about half a part per billion) was annihilated in subsequent matter/anti-matter collisions. Clearly (and thankfully) a small excess of matter survived to form our Universe. Theories attempting to explain this almost invariably predict that the neutron is not quite perfectly round.
The neutron electric dipole moment (or nEDM) was first measured in 1950 by Smith, Purcell and Ramsey at the ORNL’s Graphite Reactor – the world’s first intense neutron source. This first measurement showed that the neutron was very nearly round (to better than one part in a million).
In the last seventy years the precision of the measurement has improved by six orders of magnitude; the neutron is now known to be round to better than one part in a trillion! – Historical Development of nEDM Precision
The goal of the nEDM@SNS experiment at the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source is to further improve the precision of this measurement by two orders of magnitude. Click here to see a visual representation of this level of precision.
Magnetic Shield Enclosure under construction. Details: The nEDM@SNS experimental apparatus must be shielded from stray magnetic fields. A multi-layer Magnetic Shield Enclosure (MSE) is being assembled for this purpose by IMEDCO, a Swiss firm specializing in magnetic shielding applications. This video shows the assembly in action.
Collaborators at Caltech completed fabrication of the primary (“B0”) magnet coil. Click here to watch video
Collaborators at the University of Kentucky and Caltech carried out successful tests of the cryogenic magnetic field monitor.
The nEDM@SNS experiment uses the equivalent of an oversized travel mug to surround the large volume of liquid helium at its heart with a vacuum layer to prevent it from heating up. The so-called Outer Vacuum Chamber (OVC) was recently delivered to ORNL. nEDM@SNS Outer Vacuum Chamber arriving from GNB
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle LLC for the US Department of Energy
