Measurement of the total neutron scattering cross section ratios of noble gases of natural isotopic composition using a pulsed neutron beam

Precision measurements of slow neutron cross sections with atoms have several scientific applications. In particular the n-$^{4}$He s-wave scattering length is important to know both for helping to constrain the nuclear three-body interaction and for the proper interpretation of several ongoing slow neutron experiments searching for other types of neutron-atom interactions. We present new measurements of the ratios of the neutron differential scattering cross sections for natural isotopic-abundance mixtures of the noble gases He, Ar, Kr, and Xe to natural isotopic abundance Ne. These measurements were performed using a recently developed neutron scattering apparatus for gas samples located on a pulsed slow neutron beamline which was designed to search for possible exotic neutron-atom interactions and employs both neutron time of flight information and a position-sensitive neutron detector for scattering event reconstruction. We found agreement with the literature values of scattering cross sections inferred from Ar/Ne, Kr/Ne and Xe/Ne differential cross section ratios over the $q$ range of $1 - 7$ nm$^{-1}$. However for the case of He/Ne we find that the cross section inferred differs by 11.3% (7.6 $\sigma$) from previously-reported values inferred from neutron phase shift measurements, but is in reasonable agreement with values from other measurements. The very large discrepancy in the He/Ne ratio calls for a new precision measurement of the n-$^{4}$He scattering length using neutron interferometry.