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arXiv:hep-th/9301110 · Physical Review A

Neutron acceleration in uniform electromagnetic fields

J. Anandan, C. R. Hägen

Published Oct 1, 1994• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The question as to whether neutron acceleration can occur in uniform electromagnetic fields is examined. Although such an effect has been predicted using the canonical equations of motion, some doubt has been raised recently as to whether it is in principle observable for a spin-1/2 particle. To resolve this issue a gedanken experiment is proposed and analyzed using wave-packet construction for the neutron beam. By allowing an arbitrary orientation for the neutron spin as well as for the electric and magnetic fields, a nonvanishing acceleration of the center of the neutron wave packet is found that confirms the predictions of the canonical formalism.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.50.2860

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The question as to whether neutron acceleration can occur in uniform electromagnetic fields is examined. Although such an effect has been predicted using the canonical equations of motion, some doubt has been raised recently as to whether it is in principle observable for a spin-1/2 particle. To resolve this issue a gedanken experiment is proposed and analyzed using wave-packet construction for the neutron beam. By allowing an arbitrary orientation for the neutron spin as well as for the electric and magnetic fields, a nonvanishing acceleration of the center of the neutron wave packet is found that confirms the predictions of the canonical formalism.
The development of ideas about the optical phenomenon called the accelerating matter effect led to the hypothesis of the existence of a very general acceleration effect. Its formulation is that the result of the particle interaction with any object moving with acceleration should be a change in its energy and frequency. The validity of the acceleration effect hypothesis in quantum mechanics has recently been confirmed by numerically solving a number of problems related to the interaction of a wave packet with potential structures moving with acceleration. If these ideas are true, they can be fully attributed to the case of neutron scattering on the atomic nuclei of accelerating matter. Since the time of neutron interaction with the nucleus is very short, the observation of the acceleration effect during scattering by nuclei requires them to move with a very high acceleration. This goal can be achieved if centripetal acceleration is used.
Spinor wave functions; classical Lagrangian and Hamiltonian of a charged particle in an electromagnetic field, and its quantum Hamiltonian; gauge invariance; spin magnetic moment in a uniform magnetic field; magnetic resonance; the Stern--Gerlach experiment; neutron interferometry and rotations of spinor wave functions; treatment of a particle in a uniform magnetic field with and without the inclusion of spin degrees of freedom; Ahronov--Bohm effect for a charged spinless particle confined in a cylindrical shell.
The dynamics of neutral spinning particles in electromagnetic fields is investigated. The phase interference of unpolarized neutron beams is reasonably interpreted as the observed spin precession in external fields instead of potential effects in the quantum physics; namely, the Aharonov-Bohm and Aharonov-Casher effects. It is also pointed out that the recent experiment claimed to be the verification of Aharonov-Casher phase with neutron interferometry, however, can be considered as a test of new anyon model.
We note that the neutron spin must be treated as an intrinsically quantum variable when determining electromagnetically induced phase shifts in neutron interferometry by computing the otherwise-classical action over the classical orbit. We show that a putative acceleration of the neutron (\ensuremath{\gamma}/mc)E\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}(\ensuremath{\mu}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}B) recently suggested by Anandan, is essentially unobservable in such measurements over segments of the orbit where the electric and magnetic fields are constant (or vary slowly), within standard electroweak theory.