AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ORIGIN OF SMALL ENERGY CHANGES (~ 10-7eV) OF ULTRACOLD NEUTRONS IN TRAPS

Autor: A. V. Strelkov, A. Yu. Muzychka, E. V. Lychagin, G. V. Nekhaev, Valery Nesvizhevsky, D. G. Kartashov
Rok vydání: 2007
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Nanoscience. :501-513
ISSN: 1793-5350
0219-581X
DOI: 10.1142/s0219581x07005085
Popis: We studied the phenomenon of relatively small changes in the energy of ultracold neutrons (UCN) (when compared to thermal motion energy) when these are reflected on a surface. The changes observed involved both increases in UCN energy (their heating) and decreases (cooling) of the order of ~ 10-7 eV. The probability values of this process on various surfaces ranged between 10-8 and 10-5 per one collision; the probability of such a small heating was many times larger than that of such a small cooling. We measured the spectra of such heated neutrons and the dependence of small heating probability on the temperature of sample out-gazing. We found that out-gazing of samples in vacuum at a temperature of 500–600 K could increase the small heating probability on stainless steel surface by a factor of ~ 100; and on copper surface by a factor of ~ 10. We observed, for the first time, extremely intensive small heating of UCN on powder of diamond nanoparticles. Neither small heating of UCN, nor nanoparticles could be found on a sapphire single crystal surface. This set of experimental data indicates that the inelastic scattering of UCN on weakly bound nanoparticles at a surface in a state of thermal motion is responsible for the process investigated.
Databáze: OpenAIRE