Development of a systematic studies apparatus at NC State for the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment collaboration

An apparatus is being developed for use at the UCN source at the 1 MW NCSU PULSTAR reactor. The goal is to study several critical aspects of the SNS neutron EDM experiment without the electric field. Detailed studies of the interactions between the $^3$He and UCNs, measurements of the correlation functions determining the geometric phase systematic effect, optimization of the parameters for critical dressing, and the pseudomagnetic field caused by neutron scattering from polarized $^3$He will be made. Because of the extremely long turn around times, these would be almost impossible with the SNS apparatus. In this setup, polarized UCNs and $^3$He will be repeatedly loaded into an acrylic cell coated with deuterated TPB and polystyrene on the inner walls. Scintillation light produced in the superfluid $^4$He also in the cell after spin-dependent capture of UCNs on $^3$He will be used to measure the Larmor precession frequency difference between the two species in an external magnetic field. An overview of the experiment will be presented.