Measurement of Neutron Recoil Polarization in Deuteron Photodisintegration
An experiment at the High Intensity Gamma Source (HIGS) at the Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) was recently performed to measure the polarization of recoiling neutrons from photodisintegration of deuterium nuclei. As the simplest, multi-body nucleus, the deuteron offers a unique opportunity to study nucleon-nucleon interactions. Over the years, nuclear theory has developed to be able to describe the behavior and structure of few-body nuclei fairly well. However, discrepancies between theory and experimental data persist in measurements of polarization observables. The recoil polarization in d(γ, n→) p is a prime example of such a measurement. The purpose of the experiment is to map the polarization transfer for photon energies below 20 MeV and three laboratory angles. The setup consists of high pressure 4He-Xe polarization analyzers surrounded by neutron scintillation counters to measure the asymmetry in the scattering of polarized neutrons. From this measurement, the polarized and unpolarized photon beam contributions to the neutron polarization will be extracted and compared to theory.
