A Proposed Method for Measuring the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron Using Acceleration in an Electric-Field Gradient and Ultracold Neutron Interferometry

Abstract

The use of an ultracold neutron interferometer incorporating an electrostatic accelerator having a strong electric field gradient to accelerate neutrons by their possible electric moments is proposed as a method of measuring the neutron electric dipole moment. Such electrical acceleration, followed by an amplifier and a generator of phase difference, could develop relatively large phase differences and these could be measured by a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. This method might extend the sensitivity of the measurement by several orders of magnitude beyond the current limit of 10^{-25} e.cm. Furthermore the systematic errors in such a measurement could be significantly different from those of the current EDM experiments.