Electric breakdown and ionization detection in normal liquid and superfluid 4He for the SNA nEDM experiment

A new experiment to search for the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) is under construction at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The SNS nEDM experiment is a national collaboration spanning over 20 universities and laboratories with more than 100 physicists and engineers contributing to the research and development. The search for a nEDM is a precision test of time reversal symmetry in particle physics, in the absence of a discovery, the SNS nEDM experiment seeks to improve the present limit on the nEDM value by two orders of magnitude. A non-zero value of the nEDM would help to explain the asym- metry between matter and anti-matter in the universe by providing an additional source of charge conjugation and parity symmetry violation, a necessary ingredient in the theory of baryogenesis in the early universe.;The nEDM experiment will measure the Larmor precession frequency of neutrons by detecting scintillation from neutron capture by a dilute concentration of 3He inside a bath of superfluid 4He. Neutron capture by 3He is spin-dependent and the magnetic moments of the neutron and the 3He nucleus are comparable. A direct measurement of the precession frequency of polarized 3He and scintillation from neutron capture allows for the relative precession frequencies of 3He and the neutron to be determined. The experiment will then look for changes in the relative precession of 3He and neutrons under the influence of strong electric fields. 3He has negligible EDM and therefore any deviation due to an applied electric field would be from a nEDM.;The nEDM experiment will need to apply strong electric fields inside superfluid (SF) 4He and it was necessary to investigate the ability of SF 4He to sustain electric fields. An experiment to study electric breakdown in superfluid 4He was constructed at the Indiana University Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter (CEEM). The experiment studied the electric breakdown behavior of liquid Helium throughout the pressure-temperature phase space, between 1 bar and the saturation curve and between 4.2 K and 1.7 K. A new breakdown hysteresis in liquid helium was discovered and is attributed to the suppression of heterogeneous nucleation sites inside the liquid. A phenomenological model involving the Townsend breakdown mechanism and Paschen's Law in liquid helium is proposed.;In addition, the many challenges faced by efficient scintillation detection in the cryogenic environment of the nEDM experiment motivated additional studies at CEEM. To test the effect of an electric field on scintillation in superfluid, a SF test cell was constructed inside a dilution refrigerator and it was found that the scintil- lation intensity from a 241Am source in the cell, is reduced at high electric fields. Alternatives to scintillation detection for the nEDM experiment were also explored and the test cell was reconfigured to operate as a superfluid ionization chamber. The superfluid ionization chamber was tested with 241Am in pulse mode and current mode configurations. While the pulse mode in superfluid, which relies on the drift velocity of charges, is hindered by quasi-particle excitations in superfluid, results of current mode measurements appear promising.;To further explore the prospect of cryogenic ionization detection, a detector cryo-stat capable of detecting neutrons using a 10B converter was also constructed at CEEM and tested at the Indiana University Low Energy Neutron Source (LENS). The neutron detector cryostat has the benefit of being able to modulate the ioniza- tion source which was not possible with the superfluid ionization chamber. Tests with argon gas led to the development of more efficient boron targets. The cryogenic test of ionization detection in current mode will be discussed.