The electromagnetic polarizabilities of the nucleon are fundamental properties that describe its response to external electric and magnetic fields. They can be extracted from Compton-scattering data-and have been, with good accuracy, in the case of the proton. In contradistinction, information for the neutron requires the use of Compton scattering from nuclear targets. Here we report a new measurement of elastic photon scattering from deuterium using quasimonoenergetic tagged photons at the MAX IV Laboratory in Lund, Sweden. These first new data in more than a decade effectively double the world dataset. Their energy range overlaps with previous experiments and extends it by 20 MeV to higher energies. An analysis using Chiral Effective Field Theory with dynamical ∆(1232) degrees of freedom shows the data are consistent with and within the world dataset. After demonstrating that the fit is consistent with the Baldin sum rule, extracting values for the isoscalar nucleon polarizabilities and combining them with a recent result for the proton, we obtain the neutron polarizabilities as αn = [11.55 ± 1.25(stat) ± 0.2(BSR) ± 0.8(th)] × 10 −4 fm 3 and βn = [3.65 ∓ 1.25(stat) ± 0.2(BSR) ∓ 0.8(th)] × 10 −4 fm 3 , with χ 2 = 45.2 for 44 degrees of freedom.
Differential cross sections for Compton scattering from the deuteron were measured at MAX-Lab for incident photon energies of 55 and 66 MeV at nominal laboratory angles of 45 degrees, 125 degrees, and 135 degrees. Tagged photons were scattered from liquid deuterium and detected in three NaI spectrometers. By comparing the data with theoretical calculations in the framework of a one-boson-exchange potential model, the sum and the difference of the isospin-averaged nucleon polarizabilities, alpha(N)+beta(N)=17.4+/-3.7 and alpha(N)-beta(N)=6.4+/-2.4 (in units of 10(-4) fm(3)), have been determined. By combining the latter with the global-averaged value for alpha(p)-beta(p) and using the predictions of the Baldin sum rule for the sum of the nucleon polarizabilities, we have obtained values for the neutron electric and magnetic polarizabilities of alpha(n)=8.8+/-2.4(total)+/-3.0(model) and beta(n)=6.5-/+2.4(total)-/+3.0(model), respectively.
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