We report the first measurement of the low-energy neutron-3He incoherent scattering length using neutron interferometry: bi′=(−2.512±0.012statistical±0.014systematic) fm. This is in good agreement with a recent calculation using the AV18+3N potential. The neutron-3He scattering lengths are important for testing and developing nuclear potential models that include three nucleon forces, effective field theories for few-body nuclear systems, and neutron scattering measurements of quantum excitations in liquid helium. This work demonstrates the first use of a polarized nuclear target in a neutron interferometer.
@article{arxiv.0809.2248,
title = {Precision Measurement of the n-3He Incoherent Scattering Length Using Neutron Interferometry},
author = {M. G. Huber and M. Arif and T. C. Black and W. C. Chen and T. R. Gentile and D. S. Hussey and D. Pushin and F. E. Wietfeldt and L. Yang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.2248},
year = {2009}
}