Abstracts

Reduction of the atomic wavefunction in the Stern-Gerlach magnetic field

Presenting Author: Michael Devereux, Retired researcher (LANL and others)

Observation of two separated beam spots at a detection screen downstream of a Stern- Gerlach magnet does not, in fact, demonstrate that the wavefunction of a neutral spin one-half particle has remained in a spin superposition while traveling through that magnetic field. The wavefunction may have been reduced to just one spin-direction eigenfunction, as David Bohm suggested, by immediate momentum and energy transfer with the magnet, rather than by subsequent, which-way determination at the screen. The same two beam spots at the detector screen will result. Einsteinian relativity, and the understanding of Schrödinger evolution applicability through a static potential, forbid continuation of a spin superposition through the Stern-Gerlach field. A calculation for single wavepacket development there conforms to observations from the Stern-Gerlach experiment. And several experiments corroborate immediate reduction to a single spin eigenfunction in the magnetic field. Additionally, Ramsey’s separated, oscillating fields observations, and related experiments, do not rebut this understanding. Published in the Canadian J. Physics, 2015, 93(11): 1382-1390

Read this article online: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/69186/1/cjp-2015-0031.pdf

(Session 5 : Thursday from 5:00 - 7:00 pm)

 

SQuInT Chief Organizer
Prof. Akimasa Miyake
amiyake@unm.edu

SQuInT Co-Organizer
Prof. Elohim Becerra
fbecerra@unm.edu

SQuInT Founder
Prof. Ivan Deutsch
ideutsch@unm.edu

SQuInT Administrator
Gloria Cordova
gjcordo1@unm.edu
505 277-1850

Tweet About SQuInT 2016!