Speaker
Description
Three-nucleon (3N) interactions contribute ~5% of the binding energy of nuclei. Our ignorance of this major component of nucleon interactions limits the ability of nuclear theory to compute the properties of stable nuclei and predict the properties of the many new nuclei that radioactive beam facilities will create in the future. More accurate measurements in nuclear few body systems are needed. We have recently shown [ref] that it is possible to greatly improve our knowledge of the spin dependence of n-3He s-wave scattering by measuring the spin-dependent phase shift of a polarized neutron beam passing through polarized 3He gas using a neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy. Polarized neutron optical birefringence through polarized 3He gas can help isolate the spin dependence of the 3N interaction in combination with nuclear theory calculations. The neutron-3He system is simple enough for the relevant theory calculations to be done, and the precision from exiting neutron instruments is high enough to be sensitive to 3N interactions.
