Full vector treatment of the polarization evolution in an arbitrary field distribution

Abstract

This paper presents a vector representation of the ensemble muon polarizationP(t) for static field distributions which emphasizes the different behavior resulting from correlated and non-correlated field distributions. For example, with most local field distributions, such as random dipolar fields, the net muon polarization in the limit of infinite timeP(t→∞) is parallel to the initial muon spin direction when the using transverse field (TF) or longitudinal field (LF) geometries. In general, however, it need not be; this will be demonstrated using the field distribution of an anisotropic superconductor.