Enabling the orbital degree of freedom for neutron experiments

ORAL

Abstract

Neutrons have been highly successful in precision measurements and experimental explorations of fundamental physics using the three easily accessible degrees of freedom: spin, path, and energy. Our recent work has enabled the use of orbital angular momentum in neutron beams, which essentially provides an additional quantized degree of freedom. We have demonstrated methods that are practical with the existing technologies and show the experimental achievement of neutron helical wavefronts that carry well-defined orbital angular momentum values. In this talk I will describe the work and several proposed applications for searches of new interactions with the orbital degree of freedom. We hope that these advances open the doors for the next generation of high impact neutron experiments.

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Publication: Sarenac, D., Henderson, M.E., Ekinci, H., Clark, C.W., Cory, D.G., DeBeer-Schmitt, L., Huber, M.G., Kapahi, C. and Pushin, D.A., 2022. Experimental realization of neutron helical waves. Science Advances, 8(46), p.eadd2002.

Sarenac, D., Kapahi, C., Chen, W., Clark, C.W., Cory, D.G., Huber, M.G., Taminiau, I., Zhernenkov, K. and Pushin, D.A., 2019. Generation and detection of spin-orbit coupled neutron beams. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(41), pp.20328-20332.

Larocque, H., Kaminer, I., Grillo, V., Boyd, R.W. and Karimi, E., 2018. Twisting neutrons may reveal their internal structure. Nature Physics, 14(1), pp.1-2.

Afanasev, A.V., Karlovets, D.V. and Serbo, V.G., 2021. Elastic scattering of twisted neutrons by nuclei. Physical Review C, 103(5), p.054612.

Afanasev, A.V., Karlovets, D.V. and Serbo, V.G., 2019. Schwinger scattering of twisted neutrons by nuclei. Physical Review C, 100(5), p.051601.

Presenters

  • Dusan Sarenac

    University of Waterloo

Authors

  • Dusan Sarenac

    University of Waterloo

  • Melissa Henderson

    University of Waterloo

  • Huseyin Ekinci

    University of Waterloo

  • Charles W Clark

    National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • David Cory

    University of Waterloo

  • Lisa DeBeer-Schmitt

    ORNL

  • Michael G Huber

    National Institute of Standards and Tech

  • Connor Kapahi

    University of Waterloo

  • Dmitry Pushin

    Institute for Quantum Computing, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, University of Waterloo