Proposal for an experiment to verify Wigner's rotation at non-relativistic speeds with massive spin-1/2 particles
- authored by
- Veiko Palge, Jacob Dunningham, Yuji Hasegawa, Christian Pfeifer
- Abstract
The Wigner rotation of quantum particles with spin is one of the fascinating consequences of interplay between special relativity and quantum mechanics. In this paper we show that a direct experimental verification of Wigner's rotation is in principle accessible in the regime of non-relativistic velocities at ∼103 ms−1 for massive spin-1/2 particles. We discuss how the experiment could be carried out in a laboratory using cold neutrons. The measurement at non-relativistic velocities becomes possible through letting neutrons propagate for a sufficiently long time because Wigner rotation is a cumulative effect.
- External Organisation(s)
-
University of Tartu
University of Sussex
TU Wien (TUW)
Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM)
- Type
- Article
- Journal
- Physics Letters, Section A: General, Atomic and Solid State Physics
- Volume
- 544
- ISSN
- 0375-9601
- Publication date
- 28.03.2025
- Publication status
- E-pub ahead of print
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy
- Electronic version(s)
-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2025.130490 (Access:
Unknown)
