Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 4/09/1995 |
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<mark>Journal</mark> | Physical review letters |
Issue number | 10 |
Volume | 75 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Pages (from-to) | 1887-1890 |
Publication Status | Published |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
Using an existing experiment we have demonstrated in a pilot study that superfluid He-3 at 100 mu K can be used as a nuclear recoil detector sensitive to neutron and gamma interactions depositing energies down to a few hundred eV. The deposited energy is converted to He-3 quasiparticles which are detected by their damping effect on a vibrating wire resonator in the liquid. The system can be calibrated independently but a convenient fixed point is provided by the exothermic reaction n + He-3(2) = p + H-3(1) + 764 keV. Given the great potential for improvement we propose that the system might make a sensitive weakly interacting massive particle detector.