Abstract
The spatial splitting of an unpolarized neutron beam into two spin components in an inhomogeneous magnetic field (an analog of the Stern-Gerlach experiment) with small gradients has been measured at the Laue diffraction in a crystal and Bragg angles θB = (78–82)° close to a right one. The spatial splitting of the beam at a path length of 21.8 cm has reached (4.1 ± 0.1) cm (at a maximum gradient of 1.5 G/cm and a diffraction angle of 82°). In the absence of the crystal, the splitting would be ∼ 3.8 × 10−7 cm at the same distance and gradient. The experimental enhancement coefficient is ∼ 105 tan2 θB, which is consistent with the theory.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to V. Bellucci, R. Camattari, and V. Guidi (Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Ferrara, Italy) for assistance in the experiment.
Funding
This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project no. 17-02-00877-a).
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Russian Text © The Author(s), 2019, published in Pis’ma v Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki, 2019, Vol. 110, No. 9, pp. 579–583.
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Voronin, V.V., Semenikhin, S.Y., Shapiro, D.D. et al. Diffraction Enhancement of the Stern—Gerlach Effect for a Neutron in a Crystal. Jetp Lett. 110, 581–584 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0021364019210124
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0021364019210124