NSF International Research Fellowship Program: A Direct Measurement of the Neutron-Neutron Scattering Length at YAGUAR

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0107263StephensonThe International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will provide 6 months of support to Dr. Sharon L. Stephenson of Gettysburg College to work with Dr. Eduard I. Sharapov at the Joint Institute of Nuclear Physics in Dubna, Russia on a direct measurement of the neutron-neutron scattering length at YAGUAR. This project is being co-funded by the U.S.-Russia Cooperative Research Program and the MPS Directorate's Office of Multidisciplinary Activities.A direct measurement of the neutron-neutron scattering length has never been done. What is needed is a high instantaneous value for the neutron flux and a careful attention to systematic errors. The relatively new YAGUAR pulsed reactor has the necessary instantaneous flux. One way to address systematic errors is by modeling. The PI will use the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) transport code to model the YAGUAR pulsed reactor in Snezhinsk, Russia. She will help design and perform a first and second generation experiment; the first will achieve an accuracy in the neutron-neutron scattering length ann of 3% and the second 1%.Dr. Sharapov is a professor of nuclear physics at the Joint Institute. He is an authority on nuclear structure and is best known for leading the lanthanum parity violation experiment in the early 1980's.