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.

*This work was supported by the Canadian Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), and the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Interagency Agreement 89243019SSC000025. A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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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