THE TRANSVERSE STERN–GERLACH EXPERIMENT

It is shown theoretically in this paper that if a beam of neutral spin particles incident along the z axis is passed through an inhomogeneous, time-dependent magnetic field of the formthe beam is split into two beams in the x–y plane when the resonance condition, ω = γH0, is satisfied. The properties of the beams are similar to those obtained in the ordinary Stern–Gerlach experiment. They represent spins in the two eigenstates of Sx in a co-ordinate system rotating at the Larmor frequency about the s axis. For particles of angular momentum , the beam would be split into 2J + 1 beams. For atoms with unequally spaced energy levels Ei and eigenfunctions ψi in the field H0k, two beams are split off from the main beam when the resonance condition hω = Ei–Ej is satisfied. For an initially un-polarized beam, these two beams have eigenfunctions (1/√2)(ψi ± ψj). Magnetic resonance measurements similar to those made using the Rabi modification of the Stern–Gerlach experiment may be performed with the transverse Ste...