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Journal of Physics Communications

Development and perfomance of a miniaturised spin rotator suitable for neutron interferometer experiments

Armin Danner, Bülent Demirel, Stephan Sponar, Yuji Hasegawa

Published Mar 6, 2019• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A miniaturised versatile spin rotator for application in neutron interferometer experiments is developed. The coil design without material in the beam path allows for a magnetic field adjustable to an arbitrary direction perpendicular to the neutron beam. The field simulations show a homogeneous field over the beam cross-section of 8 mm × 5 mm and a field transition ≲20 mm from inside to outside. The performance of the fabricated miniaturised coil was quantified by carrying out the polarimeter experiment of Demirel et al ( New J. Phys. , 17 :023065, 2015) regarding spin-rotation coupling. The high efficiency spin manipulations by the implemented rotating magnetic field results in a linear dependence between the phase shift and the rotation frequency. In near future, the spin rotator will be used to investigate spin-rotation coupling in a related interferometer experiment.

DOI
10.1088/2399-6528/ab0805

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A miniaturised versatile spin rotator for application in neutron interferometer experiments is developed. The coil design without material in the beam path allows for a magnetic field adjustable to an arbitrary direction perpendicular to the neutron beam. The field simulations show a homogeneous field over the beam cross-section of 8 mm × 5 mm and a field transition ≲20 mm from inside to outside. The performance of the fabricated miniaturised coil was quantified by carrying out the polarimeter experiment of Demirel et al ( New J. Phys. , 17 :023065, 2015) regarding spin-rotation coupling. The high efficiency spin manipulations by the implemented rotating magnetic field results in a linear dependence between the phase shift and the rotation frequency. In near future, the spin rotator will be used to investigate spin-rotation coupling in a related interferometer experiment.
The effect of spin–rotation coupling is measured for the first time with neutrons. The coupling of spin with the angular velocity of a rotating spin turner can be observed as a phase shift in a neutron polarimeter set-up. After the neutron's spin is rotated by 2 π through a rotating magnetic field, different phase shifts are induced for 'up' and 'down' spin eigenstates. This phase difference results in the rotation of the neutron's spin-vector, which turns out to depend solely on the frequency of the rotation of the magnetic field. The experimental results agree well with the solutions acquired by the Pauli–Schrödinger equation.
Einstein's theory of general relativity and quantum theory form the two major pillars of modern physics. However, certain inertial properties of a particle's intrinsic spin are inconspicuous while the inertial properties of mass are well known. Here, by performing a neutron interferometric experiment, we observe phase shifts arising as a consequence of the spin's coupling with the angular velocity of a rotating magnetic field. This coupling is a purely quantum mechanical extension of the Sagnac effect. The resulting phase shifts linearly depend on the frequency of the rotation of the magnetic field. Our results agree with the predictions derived from the Pauli-Schrodinger equation.
Abstract Einstein’s theory of general relativity and quantum theory form the two major pillars of modern physics. However, certain inertial properties of a particle’s intrinsic spin are inconspicuous while the inertial properties of mass are well known. Here, by performing a neutron interferometric experiment, we observe phase shifts arising as a consequence of the spin’s coupling with the angular velocity of a rotating magnetic field. This coupling is a purely quantum mechanical extension of the Sagnac effect. The resulting phase shifts linearly depend on the frequency of the rotation of the magnetic field. Our results agree with the predictions derived from the Pauli–Schrödinger equation.
Neutron resonance spin echo phenomena, produced by resonance coils with adiabatic passage of the neutron spin, are investigated experimentally and theoretically. The adiabatic passage of the neutron spin through a resonance coil requires a specific configuration of the magnetic field. The solution of the Schr\"odinger equation, obtained for the required configuration, shows the probability of a spin-flip process; it also shows the phase shift, which the neutron experienced, when it flies through it. The precession phase inside the coil consists of three contributions in the rotating frame approach. The first, biggest contribution is the phase of the rotating frame ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{\tau}.$ The second is the precession phase of the neutron spin in the rotating frame since it follows adiabatically the effective field as seen in this frame. The third, smallest contribution is Berry's phase since the magnetic field rotates over an angle approaching $\ensuremath{\pi}$ in this rotating frame. This rotation is followed adiabatically by the neutron spin. Finally, the amplitude of the interference pattern and the phase shift between the neutron-spin states are derived for a system consisting of two such flippers. The theoretical consideration is experimentally confirmed.
The object of this report is to review the recent results and some perspectives on cold neutron interferometry using multilayer neutron mirrors developed in KUR.The purposes of our research are to develop new experimental techniques, new devices for controlling neutron spin states for opening up a new world of physics.A multilayer neutron polarizes working under a very low external magnetic field (low field magnetic mirror), Funahashi's interferometer, a cold neutron spin echo instrument, a multilayer neutron spill splitter and a cold neutron pulser were developed.The equiv- alency of the quantum precession induced by the effective gap layer of the multilayer neutron spin splitter and Larmor precession of neutron spin in a magnetic field is established.This idea allows us to develop a cold neutron phase-spin-echo interferometer (a neutron spin interferometer).The neutron spin interferometer and a cold neutron pulser enabled us to carry out the delayed choice experiment for answering the question "how the neutron wave propagates after being split by the semitransparent mirror (wave splitter)".• These matters are reviewed in this paper.•
Abstract Among the various areas of neutron optical research, neutron interferometry has provided some of the most challenging and spectacular developments. In most cases, separated coherent beams are used which are produced either by wavefront division (Young’s type) or by amplitude division (Mach− Zehnder type). These beams are subsequently coherently superposed after passing through regions of space where the neutron wavefunction is modified in phase and amplitude by various interactions: nuclear, magnetic, electromagnetic, gravitational, or by geometry and topology (as in Aharonov−Bohm-type experiments). Various types of neutron interferometers that have been tested are shown in Fig. 2.1. The first neutron interferometer was based upon wavefront division and biprism deflection, but it had several constraints for interferometric applications mainly due to the small beam separation (100 μm) (Maier-Leibnitz and Springer 1962). Nevertheless, this method gained further interest for diffraction experiments from macroscopic objects and for the detection of weak interaction effects where the long flight paths (10 m) enhance the sensitivity for the measurements of these effects (Gähler et al. 1980; Klein et al. 1981a). The perfect-crystal interferometer (Rauch et al. 1974) provides widely separated coherent beams and has become a standard method for advanced neutron optical investigations. The development of diffraction and phase grating interferometers extended the Mach-Zehnder interferometer method to very slow neutrons (loffe et al. 1985; Gruber et al. 1989). The superposition of spin-up and spin-down states in the longitudinal direction provides the basis for Larmor and Ramsey interferometry, where no lateral beam splitting is necessary. The well-known spin-echo systems (Mezei 1972) and zero-field spin-echo systems (Gähler and Golub 1987; Dubbers et al. 1989) are examples of such interferometers, which also play an important role in atom interferometry (Bord é 1989; Kasevich and Chu 1991; Riehle et al. 1991).