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An Extremum Principle for a Neutron Diffraction Experiment

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Abstract

An extremum principle was postulated by Horne, Finkelstein, Shull, Zeilinger, and Bernstein in order to derive the physically allowable parameters for sinusoidal standing waves governing a neutron in a crystal which is immersed in a strong external magnetic field: “the expectation value of the total potential 〈V〉 is an extremum.” We show that this extremum principle can be obtained from the variational principle used by Schrodinger to derive his nonrelativistic wave equation. We rederive the solutions found by the above-mentioned authors as well as some additional solutions.

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REFERENCES

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Jaeger, G., Shimony, A. An Extremum Principle for a Neutron Diffraction Experiment. Foundations of Physics 29, 435–444 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018823116843

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018823116843

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