A new experiment to search for the permanent electric dipole moment of the neutron is being developed for installation at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This experiment will be performed in liquid helium at ? 0:4 K and requires a large electric field (E ~ 75 kV/cm) to be applied in liquid helium. We have constructed a new HV test apparatus to study electric breakdown in liquid helium. Initial results demonstrated that it is possible to apply fields exceeding 100 kV/cm in a 1 cm gap between two electropolished stainless steel electrodes12 cm in diameter for a wide range of pressures.
@article{arxiv.1401.5435,
title = {High electric field development for the SNS nEDM Experiment},
author = {T. M. Ito and D. H. Beck and S. M. Clayton and C. Crawford and S. A. Currie and W. C. Griffith and J. C. Ramsey and A. L. Roberts and R. Schmid and G. M. Seidel and D. Wagner and W. Yao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.5435},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
3 pages, based on a talk given at the High Voltage in Noble Liquids (HVNL13) Workshop, FNAL, 8-9 November 2013