Polarizability of the neutron

The concept of the neutron electric polarizability (NEP) is discussed. The best result for the NEP coefficient (<0.5x10-3 fm3) was obtained by the Dubna-Garching-Riga collaboration (time-of-flight and neutron resonance technique methods, bismuth and nuclide of 208Pb). Concerning the job performed by Schmidmayer et al. (the Vienna-Oak Ridge collaboration), it is shown that this experiment should have given rise to doubt. The discussion of this experiment led to the assumption that obtained data only allowed the determination of the upper limit of about 2x10-3 fm3 for the NEP. It was also shown that the NEP determined by neutron transmission depends on the neutron mean square intrinsic charge radius. 37 refs., 1 fig