A new approach to search for free neutron-antineutron oscillations using coherent neutron propagation in gas

Abstract

Coherent forward neutron propagation in gas is discussed as a new approach to search for neutron-antineutron oscillations ($n-\bar{n}$), which violate both $B$ and $B-L$ conservation. We show that one can increase the probability of neutron - antineutron transitions to essentially the free neutron oscillation rate in the presence of a nonzero external magnetic field by tuning the density of an appropriate mixture of gases so that the neutron optical potential of the gas cancels that from an external magnetic field.