Magnetometery for cryoEDM

The existence of the matter in the universe is still an unsolved puzzle. After the Big Bang, both matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts, and subsequently annihilated. The leading theories to explain the existence of matter require an imbalance in the production of matter and antimatter in the early universe. This in turn requires CP violation, an asymmetry of the laws of physics between matter and antimatter. cryoEDM is designed to explore the total amount of CP violation and resolve this issue.
cryoEDM is a next-generation neutron electric dipole moment search in a commissioning phase of development at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble. A critical requirement of EDM searches is knowledge of the magnetic environment. This work is concerned with the development, implementation, and performance of the currently operating magnetometry system based on SQUID magnetometers.
An analysis scheme to provide magnetometry data over the volume occupied by the neutrons, from measurements using the available magnetometers, is developed. An updated method to calibrate the magnetometers using internal sources of magnetic fields is presented, and found to give good agreement with independent measurements. A new method of calibration using the neutrons as a reference is discussed, and tests on an example arrangement are shown to be promising. Algorithms for detecting and correcting for hardware induced artefacts in the data are produced, and demonstrated to reconstruct the field with good agreement in all but the noisiest environments. A software framework is developed to combine these into a real-time analysis that provides feedback and diagnostics to the experiment.
Using this new system the resolution of the magnetometers installed in cryoEDM is found to be limited by the environmental noise, and would give a false EDM signal that is greater than the statistical uncertainty in neutron counting. However, the resolution has been somewhat artificially limited to reduce the susceptibility to the RF interference present. This still allows the magnetometry to act as a useful diagnostic tool on any issues in the current magnetic environment, even if in a sub-optimal configuration. For example, investigation of the magnetic shielding of the experiment finds a reduction in the shielding relative to the design, a situation which is being addressed with the design of additional shielding. Once this shielding is installed the resolution of the magnetometers will improve as well as the slew rate of the SQUIDs, which is found to be lower than the 47,muextupTs−1 required to measure AC fields applied during a measurement.
The current system can also determine sources of magnetic perturbations created within the experiment, which will require addressing before a full EDM run can be performed. For example, cryogenic effects are observed to occur approximately hourly causing large shifts in the magnetic field. Also operation of valves controlling the flow of neutrons around the experiment are found to produce both AC magnetic fields from the driving motors, and shifts in the field from their movement. Situations which can be resolved by reexamination of installation and operational procedures.

Keywords: cryoEDM
electric dipole moment
magnetometry
EDM
nEDM
Advisor: Kraus, H
van der Grinten, M