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# The Universe is a Strange Place11footnote 1Keynote talk at SpacePart03, December 2003.

## 1 Standard Models

Our knowledge of the physical world has reached a most remarkable state. We have established economical “standard models” both for cosmology and for fundamental physics, which provide the conceptual foundation for describing a vast variety of phenomena in terms of a small number of input parameters. No existing observations are in conflict with these standard models.

This achievement allows us to pose, and have genuine prospects to answer, new questions of great depth and ambition. Indeed, the standard models themselves, through their weirdness and esthetic failings, suggest several such questions.

A good way to get a critical perspective on these standard models is to review the external inputs they require to make them go. (There is a nice word for such input parameters: “exogenous”, born on the outside. “Endogenous” parameters, by contrast, are explained from within.) This exercise also exposes interesting things about the nature of the models.

### 1.1 Fundamental Physics

What is usually called the standard model of particle physics is actually a rather arbitrary truncation of our knowledge of fundamental physics, and a hybrid to boot. In is more accurate and more informative to speak of two beautiful theories and one rather ramshackle working model: the gauge theory, the gravity theory, and the flavor/Higgs model.

The gauge theory is depicted in Figure 1. It is based on the local (Yang-Mills) symmetry $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$. The fermions in each family fall into 5 separate irreducible representations of this symmetry. They are assigned, on phenomenological grounds, the funny $`U(1)`$ hypercharges displayed there as subscripts. Of course, notoriously, the whole family structure is triplicated. One also needs a single $`SU(3)`$ singlet, $`SU(2)`$ doublet scalar “Higgs” field with hypercharge $`\frac{1}{2}`$.

Taken together, gauge symmetry and renormalizability greatly restrict the number of independent couplings that are allowed. Putting aside for a moment Yukawa couplings of fermions and Higgs field, there are just three continuous parameters, namely the universal interaction strengths of the different gauge fields. (There is a subtlety here regarding the $`U(1)`$ charges. Since implementing $`U(1)`$ gauge symmetry does not automatically quantize charge, the hypercharge assignments might appear to involve many continuous parameters, which on phenomenological grounds we must choose to have extremely special values. And that is true, classically. But consistency of the quantum theory requires cancellation of anomalies. This requirement greatly constrains the possible hypercharge assignments, bringing us down essentially to the ones we adopt.)

I should emphasize that gauge symmetry and renormalizability are deeply tied up with the consistency and existence of quantum field theories involving vector mesons. Taking a little poetic license, we could say that they are not independent assumptions at all, but rather consequences of special relativity and quantum mechanics.

General relativity manifestly provides a beautiful, conceptually driven theory of gravity. It has scored many triumphs, both qualitative (big bang cosmology, black hole physics) and quantitative (precession of Mercury, binary pulsar). The low-energy effective theory of gravity and the other interactions is defined algorithmically by the minimal coupling prescription, or equivalently by restricting to low-dimension operators. In this context, “low” means compared to the Planck energy scale, so this effective theory is very effective indeed. As in the gauge sector, symmetry – here, general covariance – greatly constrains the possible couplings, bringing us down to just two relevant parameters. Almost all the observed phenomena of gravity are described using only one of these parameters, namely Newton’s gravitational constant. We are just now coming to accept that the other parameter, the value of the cosmological term, plays an important role in describing late-time cosmology.

This impressive effective field theory of gravity is perfectly quantum-mechanical. It supports, for example, the existence of gravitons as the particulate form of gravity waves. There are major unsolved problems in gravity, to be sure, a few of which I’ll discuss below, but they shouldn’t be overblown or made to seem mystical.

The third component of the standard model consists, one might say, of the potential energy terms. They are the terms that don’t arise from gauge or space-time covariant derivatives. (Note that field strengths and curvatures are commutators of covariant derivatives.) All these terms involve the Higgs field, in one way or another. They include the Higgs field mass and its self-coupling, and the Yukawa couplings. We know of no deep principle, comparable to gauge symmetry or general covariance, which constrains the values of these couplings tightly. For that reason, it is in this sector where continuous parameters proliferate, into the dozens. Basically, we introduce each observed mass and weak mixing angle as an independent input, which must be determined empirically. The phenomenology is not entirely out of control: the general framework (local relativistic quantum field theory, gauge symmetry, and renormalizability) has significant consequences, and even this part of the standard model makes many non-trivial predictions and is highly over-constrained. In particular, the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) parameterization of weak currents and CP violation has, so far, survived close new scrutiny at the B-factories intact.

Neutrino masses and mixings can be accommodated along similar lines, if we expand the framework slightly. The simplest possibility is to allow for minimally non-renormalizable (mass dimension 5) “ultra-Yukawa” terms. These terms involve two powers of the scalar Higgs field. To accommodate the observed neutrino masses and mixings, they must occur with very small coefficients.

### 1.2 Cosmology

The emerging “standard model of cosmology” is also something of a hybrid. One part of it is simply a concrete parameterization of the equation of state to insert into the framework of general relativistic models of a spatially uniform expanding Universe (Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model); the other is a very specific hypothesis about the primordial fluctuations from uniformity.

Corresponding to the first part, one set of exogenous parameters in the standard model of cosmology specifies a few average properties of matter, taken over large spatial volumes. These are the densities of ordinary matter (i.e., of baryons), of dark matter, and of dark energy.

We know quite a lot about ordinary matter, of course, and we can detect it at great distances by several methods. It contributes about 3% of the total density.

Concerning dark (actually, transparent) matter we know much less. It has been “seen” only indirectly, through the influence of its gravity on the motion of visible matter. We observe that dark matter exerts very little pressure, and that it contributes about 30% of the total density.

Finally dark (actually, transparent) energy contributes about 67% of the total density. It has a large negative pressure. From the point of view of fundamental physics this dark energy is quite mysterious and disturbing, as I’ll elaborate shortly below.

Given the constraint of spatial flatness, these three densities are not independent. They must add up to a critical density that depends only the strength of gravity and the rate of expansion of the universe.

Fortunately, our near-total ignorance concerning the nature of most of the mass of the Universe does not bar us from modeling its evolution. That’s because the dominant interaction on large scales is gravity, and according to general relativity gravity does not care about details. According to general relativity, only total energy-momentum counts – or equivalently, for uniform matter, total density and pressure.

Assuming these values for the relative densities, and that the geometry of space is flat – and still assuming uniformity – we can use the equations of general relativity to extrapolate the present expansion of the Universe back to earlier times. This procedure defines the standard Big Bang scenario. It successfully predicts several things that would otherwise be very difficult to understand, including the red shift of distant galaxies, the existence of the microwave background radiation, and the relative abundance of light nuclear isotopes. It is also internally consistent, and even self-validating, in that the microwave background is observed to be uniform to high accuracy, namely to a few parts in $`10^5`$.

The other exogenous parameter in the standard model of cosmology concerns the small departures from uniformity in the early Universe. The seeds grow by gravitational instability, with over-dense regions attracting more matter, thus increasing their density contrast with time. This process plausibly could, starting from very small seeds, eventually trigger the formation of galaxies, stars, and other structures we observe today. A priori one might consider all kinds of assumptions about the initial fluctuations, and over the years many hypotheses have been proposed. But recent observations, especially the recent, gorgeous WMAP measurements of microwave background anisotropies, favor what in many ways is the simplest possible guess, the so-called Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum. In this set-up the fluctuations are assumed to be strongly random – uncorrelated and Gaussian with a scale invariant spectrum at horizon entry, to be precise – and to affect both ordinary and dark matter equally (adiabatic fluctuations). Given these strong assumptions just one parameter, the overall amplitude of fluctuations, defines the statistical distribution completely. With the appropriate value for this amplitude, and the relative density parameters I mentioned before, this standard model cosmological model fits the WMAP data and other measures of large-scale structure remarkably well.

## 2 From Answers to Questions: Fundamental Physics

The structure of the gauge sector of the standard model gives powerful suggestions for its further development. The product structure $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$, the reducibility of the fermion representation, and the peculiar values of the hypercharge assignments all suggest the possibility of a larger symmetry, that would encompass the three factors, unite the representations, and fix the hypercharges. The devil is in the details, and it is not at all automatic that the observed, complex pattern of matter will fit neatly into a simple mathematical structure. But, to a remarkable extent, it does. The smallest simple group into which $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ could possibly fit, that is $`SU(5)`$, fits all the fermions of a single family into two representations ($`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}+\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$), and the hypercharges click into place. A larger symmetry group, $`SO(10)`$, fits these and one additional $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ singlet particle into a single representation, the spinor $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}`$. The additional particle is actually quite welcome. It has the quantum numbers of a right-handed neutrino, and it plays a crucial role in the attractive “seesaw” model of neutrino masses, of which more below.

This unification of quantum numbers, though attractive, remains purely formal until it is embedded in a physical model. That requires realizing the enhanced symmetry in a local gauge theory. But nonabelian gauge symmetry requires universality: it requires that the relative strengths of the different couplings must be equal, which is not what is observed.

Fortunately, there is a compelling way to save the situation. If the higher symmetry is broken at a large energy scale (equivalently, a small distance scale), then we observe interactions at smaller energies (larger distances) whose intrinsic strength has been affected by the physics of vacuum polarization. The running of couplings is an effect that can be calculated rather precisely, in favorable cases (basically, for weak coupling), given a definite hypothesis about the particle spectrum. In this way we can test, quantitatively, the idea that the observed couplings derive from a single unified value.

Results from these calculations are quite remarkable and encouraging. If we include vacuum polarization from the particles we know about in the minimal standard model, we find approximate unification. If we include vacuum polarization from the particles needed to expand the standard model to include supersymmetry, softly broken at the Tev scale, we find accurate unification. The unification occurs at a very large energy scale, of order $`10^{16}`$ Gev. This success is robust against small changes in the SUSY breaking scale, and is not adversely affected by incorporation of additional particle multiplets, so long as they form complete representations of $`SU(5)`$.

On the other hand, many proposals for physics beyond the standard model at the Tev scale (Technicolor models, large extra dimension scenarios, most brane-world scenarios) corrupt the foundations of the unification of couplings calculation, and would render its success accidental. For me, this greatly diminishes the credibility of such proposals.

Low-energy supersymmetry is desirable on several other grounds, as well. The most important has to do with the “black sheep” of the standard model, the scalar Higgs doublet. In the absence of supersymmetry radiative corrections to the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs particle diverge, and one must fix its value (which, of course, sets the scale for electroweak symmetry breaking) by hand, as a renormalized parameter. That leaves it mysterious why the empirical value is so much smaller than unification scales.

Upon more detailed consideration the question takes shape and sharpens considerably. Enhanced unification symmetry requires that the Higgs doublet should have partners, to fill out a complete representation. However these partners have the quantum numbers to mediate proton decay, and so if they exist at all their masses must be very large, of order the unification scale $`10^{16}`$ Gev. This reinforces the idea that such a large mass is what is “natural” for a scalar field, and that the light doublet we invoke in the standard model requires some special justification. It would be facile to claim that low-energy supersymmetry by itself cleanly solves these problems, but it does provide powerful theoretical tools for addressing them.

The fact that an enormous new mass scale for unification is indicated by these calculations is profound. This enormous mass scale is inferred entirely from low-energy data. The disparity of scales arises from the slow (logarithmic) running of inverse couplings, which implies that modest differences in observed couplings must be made up by a long interval of running. The appearance of a very large mass scale is welcome on several grounds.

* Right-handed neutrinos can have normal, dimension-four Yukawa couplings to the lepton doublet. In $`SO(10)`$ such couplings are pretty much mandatory, since they are related by symmetry to those responsible for charge-$`\frac{2}{3}`$ quark masses. In addition, being neutral under $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ they, unlike the fermions of the standard model, can have a Majorana type self-mass without breaking these low-energy symmetries. We might expect the self-mass to arise where it is first allowed, at the scale where $`SO(10)`$ breaks (or its moral equivalent). Masses of that magnitude remove these particles from the accessible spectrum, but they have an important indirect effect. In second-order perturbation theory the ordinary left-handed neutrinos, through their ordinary Yukawa couplings, make virtual transitions to their right-handed relatives and back. This generates non-zero masses for the ordinary neutrinos that are much smaller than the masses of other leptons and quarks. The magnitudes predicted in this way are broadly consistent with the observed tiny masses. No more than order-of-magnitude success can be claimed, because many relevant details of the models are poorly determined.
* Unification tends to obliterate the distinction between quarks and leptons, and hence to open up the possibility of proton decay. Heroic experiments to observe this process have so far come up empty, with limits on partial lifetimes approaching $`10^{34}`$ years for some channels. It is very difficult to assure that these processes are sufficiently suppressed, unless the unification scale is very large. Even the high scale indicated by running of couplings and neutrino masses is barely adequate. Spinning it positively, experiments to search for proton decay remain a most important and promising probe into unification physics.
* Similarly, it is difficult to avoid the idea that unification, brings in new connections among the different families. There are significant experimental constraints on strangeness-changing neutral currents, lepton number violation, and other exotic processes that must be suppressed, and this makes a high scale welcome.
* Axion physics requires a high scale of Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking, in order to implement weakly coupled, “invisible” axion models.
* With the appearance of this large scale, unification of the strong and electroweak interactions with gravity becomes much more plausible. Newton’s constant has dimensions of mass2, so it runs even classically. Or, to put it another way, gravity responds to energy-momentum, so it gets stronger at large energy scales. Nevertheless, because gravity starts out extremely feeble compared to other interactions on laboratory scales, it becomes roughly equipotent with them only at enormously high scales, comparable to the Planck energy $`10^{18}`$ Gev. By inverting this thought, we gain a deep insight into one of the main riddles about gravity: If gravity is a primary feature of Nature, reflecting the basic structure of space-time, why does it ordinarily appear so feeble? Elsewhere, I have tracked the answer down to the fact that at the unification (Planck) scale the strong coupling $`g_s`$ is about $`\frac{1}{2}`$!

These considerations delineate a compelling research program, centered on gathering more evidence for, and information about, the unification of fundamental interactions. We need to find low-energy supersymmetry, and to look hard for proton decay and for axions. And we need to be alert to the possibility of direct information from extreme astrophysical objects and their relics. Such objects include, of course, the early universe as a whole, but also perhaps contemporary cosmic defects (strings, domain walls). They could leave their mark in microwave background anisotropies and polarization, in gravity waves, or as sources of unconventional and/or ultra-high energy cosmic rays.

Theoretical suggestions for enhancing the other two components of our standard model of fundamental physics are less well formed. I’ll confine myself to a few brief observations.

Non-minimal coupling terms arise in the extension of supersymmetry to include gravity. Such terms play an important role in many models of supersymmetry breaking. Although it will require a lot of detective work to isolate and characterize such terms, they offer a unique and potentially rich source of information about the role of gravity in unification.

The flavor/Higgs sector of fundamental physics is its least satisfactory part. Whether measured by the large number of independent parameters or by the small number of powerful ideas it contains, our theoretical description of this sector does not attain the same level as we’ve reached in the other sectors. This part really does deserve to be called a “model” rather than a “theory”. There are many opportunities for experiments to supply additional information. These include determining masses, weak mixing angles and phases for quarks; the same for neutrinos; searches for $`\mu e\gamma `$ and allied processes; looking for electric dipole moments; and others. If low-energy supersymmetry is indeed discovered, there will be many additional masses and mixings to sort out. The big question for theorists is: What are we going to do with this information? We need some good ideas that will relate these hard-won answers to truly fundamental questions.

## 3 From Answers to Questions: Cosmology

Cosmology has been “reduced” to some general hypotheses and just four exogenous parameters. It is an amazing development. Yet I think that most physicists will not, and should not, feel entirely satisfied with it. The parameters appearing in the cosmological model, unlike those in the comparable models of matter, do not describe the fundamental behavior of simple entities. Rather they appear as summary descriptors of averaged properties of macroscopic (VERY macroscopic!) agglomerations. They appear neither as key players in a varied repertoire of phenomena nor as essential elements in a beautiful mathematical theory. Due to these shortcomings we are left wondering why just these parameters appear necessary to make a working description of existing observations, and uncertain whether we’ll need to include more as observations are refined. We’d like to carry the analysis to another level, where the four working parameters will give way to different ones that are closer to fundamentals.

There are many ideas for how an asymmetry between matter and antimatter, which after much mutual annihilation could boil down to the present baryon density, might be generated in the early Universe. Several of them seem capable of giving the observed value. Unfortunately the answer generally depends on details of particle physics at energies that are unlikely to be accessible experimentally any time soon. So for a decision among them we may be reduced to waiting for a functioning Theory of (Nearly) Everything.

I’m much more optimistic about the dark matter problem. Here we have the unusual situation that there are two good ideas, which according to William of Occam (of razor fame) is one too many. The symmetry of the standard model can be enhanced, and some of its aesthetic shortcomings can be overcome, if we extend it to a larger theory. Two proposed extensions, logically independent of one another, are particularly specific and compelling. One of these incorporates a symmetry suggested by Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn. PQ symmetry rounds out the logical structure of QCD, by removing QCD’s potential to support strong violation of time-reversal symmetry, which is not observed. This extension predicts the existence of a remarkable new kind of very light, feebly interacting particle: axions. The other incorporates supersymmetry, an extension of special relativity to include quantum space-timed transformations. Supersymmetry serves several important qualitative and quantitative purposes in modern thinking about unification, relieving difficulties with understanding why W bosons are as light as they are and why the couplings of the standard model take the values they do. In many implementations of supersymmetry the lightest supersymmetric particle, or LSP, interacts rather feebly with ordinary matter (though much more strongly than do axions) and is stable on cosmological time scales.

The properties of these particles, axion or LSP, are just right for dark matter. Moreover you can calculate how abundantly they would be produced in the Big Bang, and in both cases the prediction for the abundance is quite promising. There are vigorous, heroic experimental searches underway to dark matter in either of these forms. We will also get crucial information about supersymmetry from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), starting in 2007. I will be disappointed – and surprised – if we don’t have a much more personalized portrait of the dark matter in hand a decade from now.

It remains to say a few words about the remaining parameter, the density of dark energy. There are two problems with this: Why it is so small? Why is it so big?

A great lesson of the standard model is that what we have been evolved to perceive as empty space is in fact a richly structured medium. It contains symmetry-breaking condensates associated with electroweak superconductivity and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, an effervescence of virtual particles, and probably much more. Since gravity is sensitive to all forms of energy it really ought to see this stuff, even if we don’t. A straightforward estimation suggests that empty space should weigh several orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude (no misprint here!) more than it does. It “should” be much denser than a neutron star, for example. The expected energy of empty space acts like dark energy, with negative pressure, but there’s much too much of it.

To me this discrepancy is the most mysterious fact in all of physical science, the fact with the greatest potential to rock the foundations. We’re obviously missing some major insight here. Given this situation, it’s hard to know what to make of the ridiculously small amount of dark energy that presently dominates the Universe!

The emerging possibility of forging links between fundamental physics and cosmology through models of inflation is good reason for excitement and optimism. Several assumptions in the standard cosmological model, specifically uniformity, spatial flatness, and the scale invariant, Gaussian, adiabatic (Harrison-Zeldovich) spectrum, were originally suggested on grounds of simplicity, expediency, or esthetics. They can be supplanted with a single dynamical hypothesis: that very early in its history the Universe underwent a period of superluminal expansion, or inflation. Such a period could have occurred while a matter field that was coherently excited out of its ground state permeated the Universe. Possibilities of this kind are easy to imagine in models of fundamental physics. For example scalar fields are used to implement symmetry breaking even in the standard model, and such fields can easily fail to shed energy quickly enough to stay close to their ground state as the Universe expands. Inflation will occur if the approach to the ground state is slow enough. Fluctuations will be generated because the relaxation process is not quite synchronized across the Universe.

Inflation is a wonderfully attractive, logically compelling idea, but very basic challenges remain. Can we be specific about the cause of inflation, grounding it in specific, well-founded, and preferably beautiful models of fundamental physics? Concretely, can we calculate the correct amplitude of fluctuations convincingly? Existing implementations actually have a problem here; it takes some nice adjustment to get the amplitude sufficiently small.

More hopeful, perhaps, than the difficult business of extracting hard quantitative predictions from a broadly flexible idea, is to follow up on the essentially new and surprising possibilities it suggests. The violent restructuring of space-time attending inflation should generate detectable gravitational waves. These can be detected through their effect on polarization of the microwave background. And the non-trivial dynamics of relaxation should generate some detectable deviation from a strictly scale-invariant spectrum of fluctuations. These are very well posed questions, begging for experimental answers.

Perhaps not quite so sharply posed, but still very promising, is the problem of the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays. It remains controversial whether there so many events observed at energies above those where protons or photons could travel cosmological distances that explaining their existence requires us to invoke new fundamental physics. However this plays out, we clearly have a lot to learn about the compositions of these events, their sources, and the acceleration mechanisms.

## 4 Is the Universe a Strange *Place*?

The observed values of the ratios $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }/\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}`$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}/\rho _b`$ are extremely peculiar from the point of view of fundamental physics, as currently understood. Leading ideas from fundamental theory about the origin of dark matter and the origin of baryon number ascribe them to causes that are at best very remotely connected, and existing physical ideas about the dark energy, which are sketchy at best, don’t connect it to either of the others. Yet the ratios are observed to be close to unity. And the fact that these ratios are close to unity is crucial to cosmic ecology; the world would be a very different place if their values were grossly different from what they are.

Several physicists, among whom S. Weinberg was one of the earliest and remains among the most serious and persistent, have been led to wonder whether it might be useful, or even necessary, to take a different approach, invoking anthropic reasoning. Many physicists view such reasoning as a compromise or even a betrayal of the goal of understanding the world in rational, scientific terms. Certainly, some adherents of the “Anthropic Principle” have overdone it. No such “Principle” can substitute for deep principles like symmetry and locality, which support a vast wealth of practical and theoretical applications, or the algorithmic description of Nature in general. But I believe there are specific, limited circumstances in which anthropic reasoning is manifestly appropriate and unavoidable.

In fact, I will now sketch an existence proof.

### 4.1 Relevant Properties of Axions

I will need to use a few properties of axions, which I should briefly recall.

Given its extensive symmetry and the tight structure of relativistic quantum field theory, the definition of QCD only requires, and only permits, a very restricted set of parameters. These consist of the coupling constant and the quark masses, which we’ve already discussed, and one more – the so-called $`\theta `$ parameter. Physical results depend periodically upon $`\theta `$, so that effectively it can take values between $`\pm \pi `$. We don’t know the actual value of the $`\theta `$ parameter, but only a limit, $`|\theta |10^9`$. Values outside this small range are excluded by experimental results, principally the tight bound on the electric dipole moment of the neutron. The discrete symmetries P and T are violated unless $`\theta 0`$ (mod $`\pi `$). Since there are P and T violating interactions in the world, the $`\theta `$ parameter can’t be to zero by any strict symmetry assumption. So understanding its smallness is a challenge.

The effective value of $`\theta `$ will be affected by dynamics, and in particular by spontaneous symmetry breaking. Peccei and Quinn discovered that if one imposed a certain asymptotic symmetry, and if that symmetry were broken spontaneously, then an effective value $`\theta 0`$ would be obtained. Weinberg and I explained that the approach $`\theta 0`$ could be understood as a relaxation process, whereby a very light field, corresponding quite directly to $`\theta `$, settles into its minimum energy state. This is the axion field, and its quanta are called axions.

The phenomenology of axions is essentially controlled by one parameter, $`F`$. $`F`$ has dimensions of mass. It is the scale at which Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaks.

### 4.2 Cosmology

Now let us consider the cosmological implications. Peccei-Quinn symmetry is unbroken at temperatures $`TF`$. When this symmetry breaks the initial value of the phase, that is $`e^{ia/F}`$, is random beyond the then-current horizon scale. One can analyze the fate of these fluctuations by solving the equations for a scalar field in an expanding Universe.

The main general results are as follows. There is an effective cosmic viscosity, which keeps the field frozen so long as the Hubble parameter $`H\dot{R}/Rm`$, where $`R`$ is the expansion factor. In the opposite limit $`Hm`$ the field undergoes lightly damped oscillations, which result in an energy density that decays as $`\rho 1/R^3`$. Which is to say, a comoving volume contains a fixed mass. The field can be regarded as a gas of nonrelativistic particles (in a coherent state). There is some additional damping at intermediate stages. Roughly speaking we may say that the axion field, or any scalar field in a classical regime, behaves as an effective cosmological term for $`H>>m`$ and as cold dark matter for $`Hm`$. Inhomogeneous perturbations are frozen in while their length-scale exceeds $`1/H`$, the scale of the apparent horizon, then get damped.

If we ignore the possibility of inflation, then there is a unique result for the cosmic axion density, given the microscopic model. The criterion $`Hm`$ is satisfied for $`T\sqrt{M_{\mathrm{Planck}}/F}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. At this point the horizon-volume contains many horizon-volumes from the Peccei-Quinn scale, but it still contains only a negligible amount of energy by contemporary cosmological standards. Thus in comparing to current observations, it is appropriate to average over the starting amplitude $`a/F`$ statistically. If we don’t fix the baryon-to-photon ratio, but instead demand spatial flatness, as inflation suggests we should, then for $`F>10^{12}`$ Gev the baryon density we compute is smaller than what we observe.

If inflation occurs before the Peccei-Quinn transition, this analysis remains valid. But if inflation occurs after the transition, things are quite different.

### 4.3 Anthropic Reasoning Justified

For if inflation occurs after the transition, then the patches where $`a`$ is approximately homogeneous get magnified to enormous size. Each one is far larger than the presently observable Universe. The observable Universe no longer contains a fair statistical sample of $`a/F`$, but some particular “accidenta” value. Of course there is still a larger structure, which Martin Rees calls the Multiverse, over which the value varies.

Now if $`F>10^{12}`$ Gev, we could still be consistent with cosmological constraints on the axion density, so long as the amplitude satisfies $`(a/F)^2F/(10^{12}\mathrm{Gev})`$. The actual value of $`a/F`$, which controls a crucial regularity of the observable Universe, is contingent in a very strong sense. In fact, it is different “elsewhere”.

Within this scenario, the anthropic principle is demonstrably correct and appropriate. Regions having large values of $`a/F`$, in which axions by far dominate baryons, seem likely to prove inhospitable for the development of complex structures. Axions themselves are weakly interacting and essentially dissipationless, and they dilute the baryons, so that these too stay dispersed. In principle laboratory experiments could discover axions with $`F>10^{12}`$ Gev. If they did, we would have to conclude that the vast bulk of the Multiverse was inhospitable to intelligent life. And we’d be forced to appeal to the anthropic principle to understand the anomalously modest axion density in our Universe.

Weinberg considered anthropic reasoning in connection with the density of dark energy. It would be entertaining to let both densities, and perhaps other parameters, float simultaneously, to see whether anthropic reasoning favors the observed values. Of course, in the absence of a plausible microscopic setting, these are quite speculative exercises. We don’t know, at present, which if any combinations of the basic parameters that appear in our desciption of Nature vary independently over the Multiverse. But to the extent anthropic reasoning succeeds, it might guide us toward some specific hypotheses about fundamental physics (e.g., that axions provide the dark matter, that $`F>10^{12}`$ Gev, that the dark matter candidates suggested by supersymmetry are subdominant, or perhaps unstable on cosmological time scales).

One last thought, inspired by these considerations. The essence of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism is to promote the phase of quark mass matrix to an independent, dynamically variable field. Could additional aspects of the quark and lepton mass matrices likewise be represented as dynamical fields? In fact, this sort of set-up appears quite naturally in supersymmetric models, under the rubric “flat directions” or “moduli”. Under certain not entirely implausible conditions particles associated with these moduli fields could be accessible at future accelerators, specifically the LHC. If so, their study could shed new light on the family/Higgs sector, where we need it badly.

## 5 Convergence

The way in which many of our most ambitious questions, arising from the perimeters of logically independent circles of ideas, overlap and link up is remarkable. It might be a sign that we poised to break through to a new level of integration in our understanding of the physical world. Of course, to achieve that we will need not only sharp ambitious questions, but also some convincing answers. There are many promising lines to pursue, as even this brief and very incomplete discussion has revealed.


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# A measurement of parity-violating gamma-ray asymmetries in polarized cold neutron capture on 35Cl, 113Cd, and 139La

## 1 Introduction

The NPDGamma experiment  is under construction at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This includes construction of Flight Path 12 at the Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE, which will be a pulsed cold neutron beamline dedicated to fundamental physics. The goal of the experiment is to measure the parity-violating directional gamma-ray asymmetry $`A_\gamma `$ in the reaction $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ to an accuracy of $`5\times 10^9`$, which is approximately 10% of its predicted value . This measurement will provide a theoretically clean determination of the weak pion-nucleon coupling and resolve the long-standing controversy over its value . The experiment will consist of a pulsed, cold neutron beam, transversely polarized by transmission through polarized 3He, incident on a liquid para-hydrogen target. The 2.2 MeV gamma-rays from the capture reaction will be detected by an array of CsI(Tl) scintillators coupled to vacuum photodiodes and operated in current mode. In Fall 2000, an engineering run was completed using prototypes of all major components to measure parity-violating asymmetries in neutron capture on several nuclei. Accuracies of order $`7\times 10^6`$, limited by counting statistics, were obtained after several hours of running using Cl, Cd, and La capture targets. This paper will discuss the results of this engineering run and its implications for the design of the NPDGamma experiment.

Parity violation permits a term in the differential cross section for the ($`n`$,$`\gamma `$) reaction proportional to $`s_nk_\gamma `$, where $`s_n`$ is the neutron spin direction and $`k_\gamma `$ is the photon momentum vector. A constant, $`A_\gamma `$, measures the size of this term in the differential cross section for gamma-ray emission. The cross section is proportional to $`1+A_\gamma \mathrm{cos}\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the neutron polarization and photon momentum. The parity violation arises due to weak interactions inside and between the nucleons in the nucleus, which introduces new opposite-parity components into the initial and final states and allows mixing and interference between electromagnetic transitions from opposite parity states . For example, in the $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ reaction weak effects allow a small amount of E1 transition to interfere with the primary M1 amplitude. In systems with $`Z>1`$ the interference is typically much more complicated, involving many states and many transitions. Parity-allowed asymmetries in the differential cross section with nontrivial angular distributions such as $`s_n(k_\gamma \times k_n)`$, where $`k_n`$ is the neutron momentum vector, are also possible . A general analysis of the various angular and polarization correlations in ($`n`$,$`\gamma `$) reactions is given in .

The $`s_nk_\gamma `$ correlation has been observed in 35Cl and 139La in previous experiments . While parity violation is observed in neutron capture on 113Cd in $`p`$-wave resonances at epithermal neutron energies, for cold neutron capture the process is dominated by a strong $`s`$-wave resonance and no parity violation is expected. The origin of the parity-violating effect in 139La is known to be due to mixing with a narrow $`p`$-wave resonance at 0.734 eV. The huge ($`10`$%) parity-odd effects at resonance in this  and many other heavy nuclei  are now understood in terms of two mechanisms: dynamical enhancement, which comes from the close spacing of two levels of opposite parity in the compound resonance regime; and kinematic enhancement, which is due to the difference in widths of the $`s`$ and $`p`$ resonances involved in the interference. The size of the effect for cold neutron energies below the 139La resonance is as expected from the tail of this resonance. The origin of the parity-violating effect in 35Cl is thought to be due to the mixing of two opposite-parity levels, a $`J^\pi =2^{}`$ $`p`$-wave level at 398 eV and a $`J^\pi =2^+`$ subthreshold $`s`$-wave resonance at -130 eV. The presence of a $`p`$ wave in the intermediate state in combination with final state effects in the reaction can also give rise to the parity-allowed $`s_n(k_\gamma \times k_n)`$ correlation. It was therefore possible that a significant parity-allowed asymmetry in gamma-ray emission following polarized cold neutron capture in 35Cl or 139La might exist.

There are several motivations to measure parity-violating and parity-allowed asymmetries on Cl, La, and Cd targets in preparation for the $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ experiment. Foremost, the measurement of the parity-violating correlations can be used to test a 1/10th scale version of the planned apparatus at the few parts per million level, with the Cd target as a null test. In addition, the discovery of a large parity-allowed $`s_n(k_\gamma \times k_n)`$ asymmetry would be useful for a detector alignment scheme for the NPDGamma experiment. Knowledge of the detector element angles to a precision of 20 mrad with respect to the neutron spin direction (determined by a magnetic holding field) is required in order to suppress systematic effects associated with parity-allowed neutron spin-correlated gamma-ray signals leaking into the orthogonal direction associated with the parity violation signal. Finally, the measurement also provided an opportunity to check calculations of the neutron moderator brightness and to measure relative intensity fluctuations in the neutron beam and limit this potential source of extra noise into the $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ measurement.

## 2 Description of Setup

This section describes the apparatus used in Fall 2000 to measure directional asymmetries in gamma-ray emission following polarized cold neutron capture on nuclear targets. A schematic picture of the setup is shown in Fig. 1.

### 2.1 Pulsed Cold Neutron Beam

The LANSCE linear accelerator provides 800 MeV protons to a proton storage ring, which after compression of the beam delivers 250 ns wide (at the base) pulses at 20 Hz to a split tungsten spallation target. The downstream target is surrounded by several moderators, including a partially coupled cold hydrogen moderator viewed by Flight Path 11A (FP11A). The performance of the moderator is modeled in . The neutron flux is directed through FP11A by a 58Ni-coated $`6\times 6`$ cm2 guide which begins 1 m from the moderator and is 18.5 m long. On the scale of 50 ms between pulses, the proton pulse width is very short and thus has an insignificant effect on the width of the neutron pulse from the moderator. An experiment located $`20`$ m from the source will see a time of flight spectrum of cold neutrons: for the typical energies of interest (1–100 meV, 1–9 Å) neutrons will arrive 4.5–45 ms after the proton pulse. Knowledge of time of flight and the flight path length determines the neutron energy.

### 2.2 Measurement of Cold Neutron Flux

An absolute measurement of the cold neutron flux was made by tightly collimating the beam with a 4 mm diameter Gd foil collimator. The collimator was placed in a shielding assembly 15 cm from the end of the guide. A 4.1 mm diameter 6Li-loaded glass scintillator was mounted on a photomultiplier tube which was itself mounted in an x-y positioner. This detector was located 2.65 m from the end of the guide. The collimation reduced the neutron rate enough to permit normal pulse counting techniques (to less than 60 kHz for energies less than 15 meV). With incident proton current of 90 $`\mu `$A, the peak neutron flux out of the end of the uncollimated FP11A guide was $`1.4\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^6`$ neutrons/ms per pulse at 8 meV, and the total flux from 2.5 to 40 meV was $`2.5\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$ neutrons per pulse. (Over the same energy range, including collimation to 5 cm diameter and transmission through the polarizer, there were $`2.7\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^6`$ neutrons/pulse incident on the target for the asymmetry measurements discussed below.) Using the geometry of the flight path and the collimation to convert from the measured rates, the result was a measured peak moderator brightness of $`8.6\times 10^7`$ neutrons/cm2/s/sr/meV/$`\mu `$A at 4 meV, which is 20% lower than predicted by . While the new FP12 is predicted to have a 50% larger brightness than FP11A , scaling by the measured FP11A flux indicates that FP12 will only be sufficient for the full NPDGamma experiment to make a raw asymmetry measurement of $`1.4\times 10^4`$ per neutron pulse. This corresponds to a physics asymmetry measurement of $`3.7\times 10^4`$ per pulse. Thus in the planned run time of three six month run cycles, where a run cycle consists of 2500 hours of 120 $`\mu `$A proton beam, the predicted sensitivity of the experiment to $`A_\gamma `$ is at the level of $`1.6\times 10^8`$ (30% of the DDH prediction ).

### 2.3 Intensity Fluctuations

Several possible processes, such as density fluctuations in the moderator or position fluctuation of the proton beam striking the tungsten spallation target, can produce pulse-to-pulse position fluctuations of the neutron beam which will induce noise in the asymmetry measurement that is greater than the counting statistics of the experiment. For the NPDGamma experiment, noise sources must be negligible compared to neutron counting statistics. A simple Monte Carlo study of intensity-induced position fluctuations of the neutron beam showed that relative intensity fluctuations with a variance of $`\sigma ^210^4`$ lead to noise in the asymmetry measurement equal to neutron counting statistics. Three sets of measurements were made of correlations between a proton current toroid monitor and a 3He ion chamber neutron flux monitor. The neutron intensity fluctuations for constant incident proton current were $`\sigma ^210^5`$ for each set of measurements, an order of magnitude better than the requirement. These measurements of the intensity fluctuations of the beam for constant proton current incident on the spallation target show that density fluctuations or bubbles in the cold hydrogen moderator were not a problem for the asymmetry measurements in this engineering run, and will not be a problem for NPDGamma.

### 2.4 3He Spin Filter

Cold neutron beams can be polarized in several ways, but the best technology for NPDGamma is a 3He spin filter . 3He spin filters are compact, possess a large phase space acceptance, and produce a negligible fraction of capture gamma-ray background. In contrast to a polarizing supermirror, a 3He spin filter does not require strong magnetic fields or produce field gradients. This is important for the control of systematic errors in the NPDGamma measurement. The direction of the neutron beam motion due to Stern-Gerlach steering in a magnetic field gradient is correlated with the neutron spin direction and can therefore lead to a false asymmetry due to the solid angle change of the capture gamma-ray distribution in the target as seen by the gamma-ray detectors. For this engineering run a system with a double-chambered glass cell was used to contain the 3He. The cell also contained a small amount of Rb and N2. The 3He was polarized by spin-exchange optical pumping. The polarization of the 3He proceeds by optically pumping the 795 nm $`5s5p`$ transition for the Rb valence electron, which transfers its spin to the 3He nucleus by a hyperfine interaction upon collision. The cross section for cold neutron absorption by 3He is essentially zero for parallel neutron and nuclear spins, but due to a large spin zero resonance in 4He, there is a large absorption cross section for anti-parallel spins. Thus a polarized volume of 3He can filter out one spin state of an unpolarized neutron beam and produce large neutron polarizations. The thickness of the spin filter can be optimized for polarization versus transmission.

A 12 G holding field was used to provide a uniform field parallel to the polarization direction and to prevent depolarization of the 3He by diffusion in transverse magnetic field gradients. Circularly polarized 795 nm laser light for electronic polarization of the Rb was provided by two 15 W laser diode arrays. One chamber of the cell, the pumping chamber, was in a small oven which was kept at 175 C to control Rb vapor density, and this part was illuminated by the diode lasers; the other part of the cell, the polarizer, was the volume placed in the neutron beam and used to filter out the undesired polarization state. The polarizer chamber as seen by the neutron beam was circular, 7 cm in diameter, and 1.6 cm thick. Both upstream and downstream surfaces were concave with respect to the beam direction, in order to provide a uniform cell length to the beam while maintaining curved surfaces to prevent cell explosion. The polarizer chamber was connected by a 1 cm long glass feedthrough tube to the roughly spherical and 6 cm diameter pumping chamber.

The absolute neutron polarization was measured using a supermirror  and an ion chamber back monitor (discussed below), and the 3He polarization direction was reversed using an NMR adiabatic fast passage spin flip. Relative measurements of the 3He polarization were performed during data taking by an NMR system. Since in the test run it was discovered that the stray magnetic fields from the supermirror polarization analyzer interfered with the operation of the neutron spin rotator, the $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ experiment will use a polarized 3He neutron polarization analyzer instead.

Measured neutron polarization varied from $`P=0.3`$ to $`0.7`$ for neutron energies of 10 meV to 2 meV, shown in Fig. 2. The neutron polarization is given by $`P_n=\mathrm{tanh}(n_3\sigma LP_3)`$ where $`n_3`$ is the number density of 3He, $`\sigma =(26.8/\sqrt{E})`$ kb, $`E`$ is neutron energy in meV, $`L`$ is the length of the polarizer volume, and $`P_3`$ is the 3He polarization. At typical operating temperature, the 6.0 atm cm polarizer section of this cell had 3He polarization of $`P_3=0.265`$. The relative error on the neutron polarization is 2%, a combination of three roughly equal sources of error from knowledge of the supermirror analyzing power, absolute accuracy of the NMR system, and statistical spread of individual NMR measurements.

### 2.5 Spin Flipper

To isolate a small parity-violating asymmetry, a common technique is to reverse the polarization of the incident beam and observe a correlated change in the direction of emission of the reaction products. For NPDGamma and for this test run, the neutron spins are flipped on a 20 Hz pulse-by-pulse basis with a radio frequency spin rotator, or spin flipper (RFSF). The RFSF is a shielded solenoid, 30 cm in diameter and 30 cm long, with the aluminum shielding canister a total of 10 cm larger in each dimension. The windows encountered by the neutron beam are 2 mm thick. The RFSF is similar to that employed in  with two modifications: the aluminum shielding, and the amplitude of the RF field is ramped down with an inverse time dependence every pulse to match the time the neutrons spend traversing the length of the coil.

The RFSF operates according to the well-known principles of NMR. In the presence of a homogeneous DC magnetic field and an oscillating magnetic field in a perpendicular direction, the neutron spin will precess . For a DC field of $`B_0\widehat{y}`$ and an RF field given by $`\stackrel{}{B_{rf}}=B_1\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right)\widehat{z}`$, transforming into a frame which rotates (at the same frequency $`\omega `$ as the oscillating field) about the DC magnetic field direction, the effective field is

$$\stackrel{}{B}=\left(B_0\frac{\omega }{2\pi \gamma }\right)\widehat{y}+\frac{B_1}{2}\widehat{z}$$
(1)
where $`\gamma =2\mu /h=2.916\times 10^7`$ Hz/T is the neutron gyromagnetic ratio. For $`\omega =2\pi \gamma B_0`$, a neutron initially polarized along $`\widehat{y}`$ will precess about the effective field direction $`\widehat{z}`$. If the RF field is applied for a time equal to $`\tau =1/(\gamma B_1)`$ then the neutron spin direction will be reversed relative to $`\widehat{y}`$.

The RFSF limits the region of the RF field along the neutron beam line by placing the RF coil inside of a cylindrical aluminum shield. The RF coil is a solenoid with its axis aligned along the neutron beam direction $`\widehat{z}`$. For neutrons from a spallation source and a RF interaction region of fixed length $`L`$, the interaction time $`T`$ is determined by the neutron velocity $`v(t)`$. The time $`T`$ will increase with increasing time of flight $`t`$ and obey the relationship

$$T=\frac{L}{v(t)}=\frac{Lt}{d},$$
(2)
where $`L`$ is the length of the RFSF, and $`d`$ is the distance from the spallation neutron source to the RFSF. To produce a spin flip ($`T=\tau `$), the RF amplitude must obey the relationship

$$B_1(t)=\frac{d}{\gamma Lt}.$$
(3)
In practice, the RF amplitude is not constant inside the RFSF since the normal component of the field must go to zero at the endcaps. Instead, it is the integral of the RF magnetic field amplitude along the length of the RFSF which must vary inversely with time to meet the spin flip condition for all of the neutron energies.

This type of spin rotator is an ideal choice for the NPDGamma experiment for a number of reasons. First, the spin flip can be performed on a pulse-by-pulse basis by simply turning the RF field on and off. Second, since one can contain the RF magnetic fields in metallic windows that are transparent to neutrons and the gain of the CsI detectors with vacuum photodiodes is relatively insensitive to DC and AC magnetic fields, couplings of the RF signal into the data stream which could lead to false asymmetries are greatly minimized. Third, no extra static magnetic fields or field gradients beyond those required for neutron spin transport are required. Fourth, the RFSF provides efficient pulse-to-pulse control of neutron polarization state for a wide range of energies. Fifth, and finally, this type of spin flipper does not change the neutron beam phase space or kinetic energy. Although a neutron will absorb or emit energy due to the external RF magnetic field, on resonance this change in energy is balanced by the change in potential energy of the neutron in the static magnetic field and the neutron kinetic energy does not change . Therefore a host of possible systematic effects associated with a spin-dependent neutron energy spectrum of the beam are absent.

The RFSF field amplitude and frequency were tuned using the polarized neutron beam produced by the 3He system and a supermirror analyzer  to analyze the flipped pulses. The supermirror analyzer uses the spin dependence of the reflection probability of polarized neutrons from the neutron optical potential of magnetized mirrors to analyze the polarization with an analyzing power approaching 100% for cold neutrons.

The 3He/H2 ion chamber back monitor was placed downstream of the supermirror and the difference it recorded between RFSF on and off pulses yielded the RFSF efficiency. The RFSF was typically driven at 34 kHz in the holding field of 12 G, a relationship determined by the neutron gyromagnetic ratio. For a 2.5 cm collimated beam, the RFSF efficiency, defined as the absolute ratio of transmitted (flipped) neutron polarization to incident polarization, was measured to be $`ϵ=0.98\pm 0.02`$. This efficiency is sufficiently large and well-known for NPDGamma.

### 2.6 Beam Monitors

Two current-mode beam monitors were used in this test run: a front monitor with 3He and 4He, and a back monitor with 3He and H2. The design of the front monitor allows it to employ an analog subtraction between the current signal of the 3He-filled front chamber (which responds to neutrons and gamma-rays) and the current signal from the 4He-filled rear chamber (which responds only to gamma-rays since the neutron absorption cross section of 4He is zero) to produce a signal which is dominated by neutron capture in the monitor . As discussed above, the front monitor was used to measure fluctuations in beam intensity. It was then removed from the beamline for the measurements of gamma-ray asymmetries.

The back monitor, which is a 3He-filled segmented ion chamber similar in design to , was used to study the 3He spin filter system and the RFSF. It consists of a metal cylinder coaxial with the neutron beam with longitudinal segments bounded alternately by high voltage electrodes and signal collection plate electrodes. The chamber housed ten 7.6 cm diameter, 0.76 mm thick Al collection plates spaced evenly by 2.5 cm increments along the beam axis, and ten electrodes held at 3 kV. The voltage as a function of depth along the beam axis makes a zigzag pattern, with ions on either side of a high voltage plate accelerated to opposite signal plates. The detector is therefore effectively segmented into separate regions of sensitivity along the beam axis. This segmentation along with the known neutron absorption and scattering cross sections implies that the neutron signal changes in a known way as the neutron energy spectrum hardens as it passes into the chamber. A gas mixture of 0.5 atm 3He and 3 atm H2 was chosen based on simulations of the ion chamber response. H2 gas was chosen as the fill gas due to its low sensitivity to gamma-rays and the order-of-magnitude greater mobility of ions in H2 gas relative to other gases. This choice led to a collection time for the ions of about 100 microseconds. The 3He gas pressure and overall length of the chamber was chosen to produce an essentially unit neutron detection efficiency from 1–100 meV. If the detector efficiency is flat and the ion chamber signal is dominated by neutron capture, the observed current is proportional to neutron flux.

The depth dependence of the signal was consistent with expectations based on the assumption that the current mode signal was due to neutron capture. The sensitivity of the ion chamber to gamma-rays was measured by converting the entire neutron beam into 0.5 MeV gamma-rays directly in front of the chamber by absorption by the 10B in B4C. This test demonstrated that less than 0.3% of the signal was due to gamma-rays in the neutron beam. The neutron current measured by the ion chamber shows discontinuities which correspond to the presence of Bragg edges from the aluminum material in the beam. These discontinuities correspond to neutron wavelengths $`\lambda =2d`$ below which diffraction from those lattice planes separated by $`d`$ are forbidden. The relative time of flight positions of these Bragg edges in combination with the known source-chamber distance and the known $`d`$ spacings of aluminum are used to calibrate the time of flight spectrum in terms of neutron energy. Materials of the chamber were chosen to be high voltage compatible and bakeable to remove electronegative impurities and improve the ion drift velocity. The signals from the collection plates were read out to current to voltage amplifiers similar to those used for the CsI detectors with a 100 M$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ gain resistor.

### 2.7 Nuclear Targets

For parity-violating and parity-allowed asymmetry measurements, three targets were used. As a chlorine target, an aluminum canister was filled with CCl4 (natural Cl). The CCl4 thickness seen by the neutron beam was 3.8 cm. As a lanthanum target, a natural La (99.91% 139La) metal cylinder 10.2 cm in diameter and 2.5 cm thick was housed in a 1 mm thick stainless steel can. As a cadmium target, a 0.76 mm thick piece of natural Cd metal was cut into a 10.2 cm diameter circle. To eliminate neutron backgrounds and reduce activation of the CsI(Tl), the targets were in turn mounted in a cylinder of 6Li-doped plastic with inner diameter 10.2 cm and outer diameter 15.2 cm. The neutron beam was collimated to 5 cm diameter and no neutrons were directly incident on the plastic cylinder. The targets were located at a flight path length of 21.9 m.

### 2.8 Gamma-ray Detectors

To detect the gamma-rays emitted following neutron capture, an array of four CsI(Tl) crystals was symmetrically mounted around the target volume. The crystals were housed in Al canisters with external dimensions $`15\times 16.5\times 16.5`$ cm3. The closest faces of the detectors were 8.4 cm from the central axis of the neutron beam, allowing each detector to cover a solid angle of $`0.1\times 4\pi `$ sr with respect to the target location. The crystals were viewed with 70 mm vacuum photodiodes (Hamamatsu R2046PT) biased at -90 V. The photoelectron yield of the crystals was measured to be $`500`$ p.e./MeV, and typical photodiode currents were a few nA. This light output was sufficient to make the extra noise encountered in current mode measurement due to fluctuations in the number of quanta produced per neutron capture small compared to neutron counting statistics.

The magnetic field sensitivity of the photodiode signals to DC fields was measured to be less than $`1\times 10^4`$/G in a 10 G field directed perpendicular to the photodiode axis. The second-order magnetic field sensitivity of the photodiode signals was measured to be less than $`1\times 10^5`$/G2, in an oscillating field with amplitude of 10 G. For this engineering run and for the NPDGamma experiment, the RFSF magnetic field is the field with the most possibility for undesired experimental effects, as its presence or absence is by definition correlated with the neutron spin state. Since the RFSF magnetic field is not DC but operates at $``$30 kHz, a fast time scale compared to the recorded data, first order gain effects will cancel out, but second order effects may not. The measured sensitivities combined with the fields and field variations expected in the NPDGamma experiment lead to negligible systematic effects.

The current signals from the photodiodes were read out into a low-noise solid state current to voltage preamplifier with a gain resistor of 10 M$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The preamplifier signals were sampled at 25 kHz with 16 bit ADC’s in a VME system, and the data compressed by a factor of ten to be written as 100 samples, or time bins, over 40 ms per pulse. With the neutron beam off, the r.m.s. noise per time bin was measured to be of order 1 mV. Pedestal values for the detectors were typically 100 ADC counts, or 30 mV. An average gamma-ray intensity spectrum, indicative of the time structure of the neutron flux, is shown in Fig. 3.

## 3 Asymmetry Measurements

Asymmetry measurements were made on three targets. The neutron energy range analyzed in each case was 2.5 meV to 40 meV, corresponding to 8–32 ms time of flight, or 1.4–5.7 Å.

Asymmetries were formed using matched eight-step spin sequences ($``$) of consecutive pulses and a calculation of the geometric mean asymmetry within the sequence. This 8-step sequence is chosen to cancel linear and quadratic time-dependent drifts in detector efficiencies. The raw experimental asymmetries are calculated as follows:

$$A_{\mathrm{raw}}=\frac{\sqrt{\frac{U_{}D_{}}{U_{}D_{}}}1}{\sqrt{\frac{U_{}D_{}}{U_{}D_{}}}+1}$$
(4)
where $`U,D`$ refer to the upper and lower detector signals, and the subscripts $`,`$ refer to the neutron spin direction. For these measurements the up-down direction was the axis of the neutron polarization, so an asymmetry between the $`U`$ and $`D`$ detectors is parity-violating. An asymmetry between the $`L`$ and $`R`$ detectors is parity-allowed. The state $``$ corresponds to RFSF on, $``$ to RFSF off. The asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{raw}}`$ was calculated for each valid eight-step spin sequence, in each case four steps added together to obtain $`U_{}`$ and $`D_{}`$ and the other four to obtain $`U_{}`$ and $`D_{}`$. For each sequence the raw asymmetries were calculated by time bin using the data from the 20th to 80th of the 100 samples. This range in neutron time of flight corresponds to the peak of the neutron distribution and to a region of well-understood neutron polarization and RFSF efficiency. An identical procedure was used for the left and right detector pair. A cut was made to eliminate sequences which had pulses with anomalous incident neutron fluxes. If any of the eight steps had a detector sum ($`U+D+L+R`$) over all time bins that differed by more than 1% from the average of all the sequences in the sum, the entire eight-step sequence was discarded. This cut removed less than 1% of the data. The final data set for each target consisted of 6.5 to $`8.4\times 10^4`$ eight-step sequences.

For each sequence, the measured asymmetries $`A_{\mathrm{raw}}`$ were corrected to physics asymmetries $`A_\gamma `$ in each time bin using

$$A_\gamma =\frac{(A_{\mathrm{raw}}A_{\mathrm{noise}})}{PRTG}$$
(5)
where $`A_{\mathrm{noise}}`$ is a measured false asymmetry due to electronic noise pickup, $`P`$ is the neutron polarization, $`R`$ is the RFSF efficiency, $`T`$ is a factor for neutron depolarization in the target prior to capture, and $`G`$ is a geometry factor for the average angle of the gamma-rays seen by the detectors relative to the neutron polarization. These factors are discussed in the following five paragraphs. The factors $`P`$ and $`T`$ vary with neutron energy, while the others are independent of the neutron energy (constant for all time bins). The data were combined in this way in order to obtain the proper weighting of events at different energies.

The electronic noise asymmetry was measured before and after the neutron capture data were acquired. With no neutrons incident on the apparatus, the average of two one-hour runs was $`A_{\mathrm{noise}}^{UD}=(0.12\pm 0.26)\times 10^6`$ and $`A_{\mathrm{noise}}^{LR}=(0.42\pm 0.25)\times 10^6`$. These values were extracted from the data using the same method as for $`A_{\mathrm{raw}}`$. Since these values are less than two standard deviations from zero and are an order of magnitude smaller than the statistical error, $`A_{\mathrm{noise}}=0`$ is used to obtain physics asymmetries from the raw asymmetries.

The absolute neutron polarization was measured using the supermirror analyzer and back monitor neutron detector, and fit to a hyperbolic tangent function to relate the pickup coil NMR signal to $`P_3`$. NMR measurements were made during data taking and the NMR signal amplitudes measured during data taking with each target were used to provide a $`P_3`$ for the hyperbolic tangent expression given earlier for neutron polarization versus energy. The convolution of the neutron polarization values and the detector signals (versus energy) leads to an event weighted average polarization of $`P0.37`$ for each of the targets.

Since the RFSF is on for half the neutron pulses, the measured efficiency $`ϵ=0.98\pm 0.02`$ yields a factor of $`R=(1+ϵ)/2=0.99\pm 0.01`$ for converting to a physics asymmetry.

Neutron depolarization in the target, $`T`$, is accounted for using cross section values for ($`n,\gamma `$), spin-coherent scattering, and spin-incoherent scattering, taken from . A simple Monte Carlo was written to propagate neutrons through the target material according to the cross sections (assuming a $`1/v`$ dependence of the capture cross section for 35Cl and 139La), and upon each scattering event the probability of spin-flip scattering was accounted for by taking the ratio of $`\frac{2}{3}`$ of the spin-incoherent scattering cross section to the total scattering cross section. Depolarization was determined by computing an average value for $`(1)^n`$ where $`n`$ was the number of spin-flip scatterings prior to capture. The convolution of the depolarization values with the detector signals leads to event weighted factors of $`T=0.92,1.00,0.94`$ for Cl, Cd, and La respectively. For each target, it was assumed that isotopes other than the one of interest (35Cl, 113Cd, and 139La) contribute negligibly to the scattering, capture, or $`A_\gamma `$.

The geometrical acceptance of the detector crystals was modeled using the computer code MCNP . The result for average $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ for parity-violating (up-down) asymmetry and for average $`\mathrm{sin}(\theta )`$ for the parity-allowed (left-right) asymmetry yielded factors of $`G=0.86,0.86,0.87`$ for Cl, Cd, and La respectively. The angle $`\theta `$ is that between the neutron polarization axis and the gamma-ray momentum.

Following the above analysis, each sequence produced a result for parity-violating $`A_\gamma ^{\mathrm{PV}}`$ and parity-allowed $`A_\gamma ^{\mathrm{PA}}`$, corresponding to $`s_nk_\gamma `$ and $`s_n(k_\gamma \times k_n)`$, where $`s_n`$ is the neutron spin direction, $`k_n`$ is the neutron momentum vector, and $`k_\gamma `$ is the photon momentum vector. A histogram of the values of 35Cl $`A_\gamma ^{\mathrm{PV}}`$, with one entry per sequence, is shown in Fig. 4. The physics asymmetries for each target were histogrammed and fit by minimizing $`\chi ^2`$ compared to a Gaussian distribution to extract the mean value and the error in the mean. The results of the fitting are consistent with the simple average of each data set. For final results, the values for $`A_\gamma ^{\mathrm{PV}}`$ and $`A_\gamma ^{\mathrm{PA}}`$ are obtained from taking the list of sequence asymmetry values and calculating the mean and error in the mean from the simple average and standard deviation of the data. The signs of the asymmetries were carefully checked through the data acquisition electronics and analysis code.

Parity-violating asymmetries were detected (greater than two standard deviations from zero) in neutron capture on the Cl and La targets. No parity-allowed asymmetry was seen in those targets. No asymmetry of either type was observed with the Cd target. The results are presented in Table 1. The table includes: values $`A_{\mathrm{raw}}`$, which are the raw asymmetry data over the analyzed energy range combined by weighting by number of events; values $`A_\gamma `$ which are obtained from converting the raw asymmetries to physics asymmetries for each time bin, and then combining the results weighted by the error on the physics asymmetry in each bin; and previous results $`A_\gamma `$ .

The statistical error in the combined parity-violating Cl raw asymmetry data is $`\pm 2.1\times 10^6`$. A calculation of the $`\sqrt{N}`$ statistical error based on the number of neutron capture events results in an expected error of $`\pm 1.9\times 10^6`$. The primary sources of uncertainty in this calculation are uncertainty in the neutron flux and in the effective solid angle of the detectors. The statistical errors on the asymmetries follow the expectation of counting statistics given the measured neutron flux and there is no evidence for extra noise sources. Systematic errors are small on the correction factors discussed above: 1% on $`R`$, 2% on $`P`$, 2% on $`T`$, and 5% on $`G`$. Studies which split the data into independent sets to compare asymmetry results discovered no anomalous effects.

A theoretical estimation of the parity-violating correlation $`s_nk_\gamma `$ in polarized cold neutron capture on 35Cl gives $`A_\gamma =(37\pm 18)\times 10^6`$ , which is consistent with experiment in both sign and magnitude. This estimate used the detailed knowledge of the spectroscopy of 36Cl, including the sign cancellations in the integral asymmetry from the many different transitions in the 36Cl de-excitation spectrum and the gamma-ray energy weighting appropriate for the current-mode asymmetry measured in this experiment.

## 4 Summary and Prospects

The parity-violating $`s_nk_\gamma `$ neutron capture asymmetry measurements reported here are consistent with previous experimental results  and of somewhat comparable precision. However, they were made in a fraction of the run time (eight hours per target) due to the large flux available with the pulsed beamline at LANSCE. In the $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ experiment the parity-violating asymmetry in 35Cl will be used to periodically monitor the performance of the apparatus.

No parity-allowed $`s_n(k_\gamma \times k_n)`$ asymmetries were seen in these measurements, at the level of $`7\times 10^6`$. A large parity-allowed (left-right) asymmetry would provide a useful technique for alignment of the NPDGamma detector array by observing the mixing of the known left-right asymmetry into the up-down detector channels. This alignment is required to suppress the size of systematic effects which lead to neutron spin-dependent left-right motion of the beam and/or intensity of the gamma-ray angular distribution. Another possible method to measure the angle of each detector element to 20 mrad precision would be to scan a small neutron capture target in x-y and observe the change in detected gamma-ray intensity. However, to remove the variable of beam non-uniformity, a method using translation of the array (rather than translation of a capture target) will be used for the full NPDGamma experiment.

This engineering run, as compared to the full apparatus that will be constructed for the NPDGamma experiment, was missing the following components: a frame overlap chopper, a full-sized 3He system, a liquid para-hydrogen target, a full complement of detectors, and a 3He neutron polarization analyzer. A new beamline at LANSCE for nuclear physics is under construction with a larger ($`9.5\times 9.5`$ cm2 vs. $`6\times 6`$ cm2) $`m=3`$ supermirror guide. Scaling of the engineering run errors by run time, proton current, moderator brightness, guide characteristics of size and transmission, and detector solid angle, yields an expected statistical error on a statistics limited measurement of $`A_\gamma `$ for $`\stackrel{}{n}+pd+\gamma `$ of $`1.6\times 10^8`$ in 7500 hours of delivered neutron beam on FP12 at LANSCE. All tests show that the experimental design and method are sufficient to make a measurement of this precision for NPDGamma.

## 5 Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. G. Peralta and Dr. J.M. O’Donnell for their technical support during this experiment. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (Office of Energy Research, under Contract W-7405-ENG-36), the National Science Foundation (Grant No. PHY-0100348), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.