Experimental Search for the Singlet Metastable Deuteron in the Radiative n-p Capture

TL;DR

This study conducted a high-statistics experimental search for a hypothesized singlet deuteron bound state in thermal neutron capture, setting upper limits on its formation probability within specific energy bounds.

Contribution

It provides the first high-statistics experimental constraints on the existence of the singlet deuteron in the 25-125 keV energy range.

Findings

No evidence found for the singlet deuteron.

Established upper limits on transition probability.

Constrained theoretical models predicting the singlet deuteron.

Abstract

We performed an experimental search for the bound state singlet deuteron predicted in some microscopic calculations. The experiment consists in a high statistics measurement of gamma ray spectra after thermal neutron capture by hydrogen nuclei. The upper limit is obtained for the probability of the 3S1 - 1S0 -transition population of the deuteron singlet bound state with the bound energy in the interval 25-125 keV.