Probing the Stretchiness of Nucleons Using Compton Scattering at HIGS of Cryogenic Liquids

The goal of nuclear physics is to understand the nature, interactions, and properties of nuclear matter. This research will improve our knowledge of the nuclear strong force between quarks inside protons and neutrons. Our experiment is performed using the particle accelerator-based High-Intensity Gamma-ray Source at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, NC located at Duke University. By studying how gamma photons temporarily polarizes and Compton scatter from helium-4, helium-3, protons and deuterons, we will determine their “stretchiness”. To increase the number of interactions and thus precision of our experiment, these room temperature gasses are liquified and cooled down to 2–23 K and stored in a soda-can sized target cell volume to increase the nuclear number density. The probability of Compton scattering per nucleus is the main experimental parameter. Therefore, the density is required to a high precision, which varies with a liquid’s temperature. I have analyzed the recorded temperatures data from around 400 successful runs spanning several weeks of live running time taken in 2021 & 2022. I have converted the temperatures to densities using cryogenic liquid thermodynamic properties. To correct for temperature fluctuations and to study the stability of the system, I have extracted the mean, standard deviation, and range of temperatures using Matlab. Since our temperatures are measured with a precision of ~ 1 mK, I have interpolated the values from known literature tables that have a wider temperature spacing.’