Measuring the Neutron’s Mean Square Charge Radius Using Neutron Interferometry

The neutron is electrically neutral, but its substructure consists of charged quarks so it may have an internal charge distribution. In fact it is known to have a negative mean square charge radius (MSCR), the second moment of the radial charge density. In other words the neutron has a positive core and negative skin. In the first Born approximation the neutron MSCR can be simply related to the neutron-electron scattering length bne. In the past this important quantity has been extracted from the energy dependence of the total transmission cross-section of neutrons on high-Z targets, a very difficult and complicated process. A few years ago S. A. Werner proposed a novel approach to measuring bne from the neutron’s dynamical phase shift in a perfect crystal close to the Bragg condition. We are conducting an experiment based on this method at the NIST neutron interferometer which may lead to a five-fold improvement in precision of bne and hence the neutron MSCR.