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We report the first observation of the parity-violating gamma-ray asymmetry A_{γ}^{np} in neutron-proton capture using polarized cold neutrons incident on a liquid parahydrogen target at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A_{γ}^{np} isolates the ΔI=1, ^{3}S_{1}→^{3}P_{1} component of the weak nucleon-nucleon interaction, which is dominated by pion exchange and can be directly related to a single coupling constant in either the DDH meson exchange model or pionless effective field theory. We measured A_{γ}^{np}=[-3.0±1.4(stat)±0.2(syst)]×10^{-8}, which implies a DDH weak πNN coupling of h_{π}^{1}=[2.6±1.2(stat)±0.2(syst)]×10^{-7} and a pionless EFT constant of C^{^{3}S_{1}→^{3}P_{1}}/C_{0}=[-7.4±3.5(stat)±0.5(syst)]×10^{-11} MeV^{-1}. We describe the experiment, data analysis, systematic uncertainties, and implications of the result.

Liquid hydrogen is a dense Bose fluid whose equilibrium properties are both calculable from first principles using various theoretical approaches and of interest for the understanding of a wide range of questions in many body physics. Unfortunately, the pair correlation function $g(r)$ inferred from neutron scattering measurements of the differential cross section $d\sigma \over d\Omega$ from different measurements reported in the literature are inconsistent. We have measured the energy dependence of the total cross section and the scattering cross section for slow neutrons with energies between 0.43~meV and 16.1~meV on liquid hydrogen at 15.6~K (which is dominated by the parahydrogen component) using neutron transmission measurements on the hydrogen target of the NPDGamma collaboration at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The relationship between the neutron transmission measurement we perform and the total cross section is unambiguous, and the energy range accesses length scales where the pair correlation function is rapidly varying. At 1~meV our measurement is a factor of 3 below the data from previous work. We present evidence that these previous measurements of the hydrogen cross section, which assumed that the equilibrium value for the ratio of orthohydrogen and parahydrogen has been reached in the target liquid, were in fact contaminated with an extra non-equilibrium component of orthohydrogen. Liquid parahydrogen is also a widely-used neutron moderator medium, and an accurate knowledge of its slow neutron cross section is essential for the design and optimization of intense slow neutron sources. We describe our measurements and compare them with previous work., Comment: Edited for submission to Physical Review B

The NPDGamma collaboration reports results from the first phase of a measurement of the parity violating up-down asymmetry ${A}_{\ensuremath{\gamma}}$ with respect to the neutron spin direction of $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ rays emitted in the reaction $\mathrm{nP\vec}+p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}d+\ensuremath{\gamma}$ using the capture of polarized cold neutrons on the protons in a liquid parahydrogen target. One expects parity-odd effects in the hadronic weak interaction between nucleons to be induced by the weak interaction between quarks. ${A}_{\ensuremath{\gamma}}$ in $\mathrm{nP\vec}+p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}d+\ensuremath{\gamma}$ is dominated by a $\ensuremath{\Delta}I=1$, ${}^{3}{S}_{1}$-${}^{3}{P}_{1}$ parity-odd transition amplitude in the n-p system. The first phase of the measurement was completed at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center spallation source (LANSCE), with the result ${A}_{\ensuremath{\gamma}}=[\ensuremath{-}1.2\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2.1 (\mathrm{stat}.)\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.2 (\mathrm{sys}.)]\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}$. We also report the first measurement of an upper limit for the parity-allowed left-right asymmetry in this reaction, with the result ${A}_{\ensuremath{\gamma},\mathrm{LR}}=[\ensuremath{-}1.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.9 (\mathrm{stat}.)\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.2 (\mathrm{sys}.)]\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}7}$. In this paper we give a detailed report on the theoretical background, experimental setup, measurements, extraction of parity-odd and parity-allowed asymmetries, analysis of potential systematic effects, and LANSCE results. The asymmetry has an estimated size of $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$ and the aim of the NPDGamma collaboration is to measure it to $1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$. The second phase of the measurement will be performed at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Parity-odd asymmetries in the electromagnetic decays of compound nuclei can sometimes be amplified above values expected from simple dimensional estimates by the complexity of compound nuclear states. In this work we use a statistical approach to estimate the root mean square (RMS) of the distribution of expected parity-odd correlations $\vec{s_{n}} \cdot \vec{k_{\gamma}}$, where $\vec {s_{n}}$ is the neutron spin and $\vec{k_{\gamma}}$ is the momentum of the gamma, in the integrated gamma spectrum from the capture of cold polarized neutrons on Al, Cu, and In and we present measurements of the asymmetries in these and other nuclei. Based on our calculations, large enhancements of asymmetries were not predicted for the studied nuclei and the statistical estimates are consistent with our measured upper bounds on the asymmetries., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures