Eur. Phys. J. C (2014) 74: 3088
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-014-3088-8

Letter

Probing the short range spin dependent interactions by polarized ³He atom beams

¹ Institute of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, Sichuan, 621900, China
² Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47408, USA

^* e-mail: haiyan@umail.iu.edu

Received: 9 March 2014
Accepted: 12 September 2014
Published online: 7 October 2014

Abstract

Experiments using polarized ³He atom beams to search for short range spin dependent forces are proposed. High intensity, high polarization, small beam size ³He atom beams have been successfully produced and used in surface science researches. By incorporating background reduction designs as combination shielding by µ-metal and superconductor and double beam paths, the precision of spin rotation angle per unit length could be improved by a factor of ~10⁴. By this precision, in combination with a high density and low magnetic susceptibility sample source mass, and reversing one beam path if necessary, sensitivities on three different types of spin dependent interactions could be improved by as much as ~10² to ~10⁸ over the current experiments at the millimeter range.