Extraction of bounds on time-reversal non-invariance from neutron reactions

Abstract Ratios involving on-resonance measurements of the three-fold correlation (TC) and five-fold correlation (FC) cross-sections for which the dependence on some of the unknown spectroscopic data is eliminated are considered. Closed-form expressions are derived for the statistical distributions of these ratios. Implications for bounds on the variance of matrix elements of time-reversal (T) non-invariant nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions are discussed within a Bayesian framework and the competitiveness with bounds from other experiments is evaluated. The prospects for null FC measurements improving by an order of magnitude or more upon the current bound on a parity-conserving T-odd interaction are good.