Stern-Gerlach dynamics with quantum propagators

Journal Article · Sat Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.012109· OSTI ID:21529031

Hsu, Bailey C; Berrondo, Manuel; Van Huele, Jean-Francois S ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602 (United States)

We study the quantum dynamics of a nonrelativistic neutral particle with spin in inhomogeneous external magnetic fields. We first consider fields with one-dimensional inhomogeneities, both unphysical and physical, and construct the corresponding analytic propagators. We then consider fields with two-dimensional inhomogeneities and develop an appropriate numerical propagation method. We propagate initial states exhibiting different degrees of space localization and various initial spin configurations, including both pure and mixed spin states. We study the evolution of their spin densities and identify characteristic features of spin density dynamics, such as the spatial separation of spin components, and spin localization or accumulation. We compare our approach and our results with the coverage of the Stern-Gerlach effect in the literature, and we focus on nonstandard Stern-Gerlach outcomes, such as radial separation, spin focusing, spin oscillation, and spin flipping.

• OSTI ID: 21529031
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.012109; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
FOCUSING
MAGNETIC FIELDS
NEUTRAL PARTICLES
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
OSCILLATIONS
PROPAGATOR
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SPIN
SPIN FLIP
STERN-GERLACH EXPERIMENT
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
EVALUATION
MECHANICS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES