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A brief review of the history of the experimental search for the neutron electric-dipole moment (EDM) is presented, followed by a discussion of the “state of the art” experimental techniques based on the storage of ultracold neutrons. Also discussed is the recent work on the construction of an improved experiment incorporating a ¹⁹⁹Hg magnetometer within the ultracold neutron storage volume.

We then review a number of well-known experimental and theoretical results and propose an entirely new experimental technique to search for the neutron EDM based on storing together, in superfluid ⁴He, polarized ultracold neutrons and a polarized gas of ³He atoms; this forms a unique system of two spins interacting by means of a spin-dependent mutual absorption. Such a system appears to be ideally suited for use in a neutron EDM search. Following a brief description of the method, we present an analysis of the …