In a course on quantum mechanics I took we were told that for the setting in which the gun shoots a particle with spin orientation +z and the analyzer is perpendicular to this orientation, 50% of the time the Stern-Gerlach apparatus will detect the particle coming out from the +x aperture, and 50% from the -x aperture.
I ran the PhET Stern-Gerlach simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/stern-gerlach/stern-gerlach_en.html) with one analyzer (magnet) and obtained the following results:
at 0 deg. angle: 100% from +x
at 90 deg. angle: 50% from +x, 50% from -x
at 180 deg. angle: 100% from -x
at 270 deg. angle: ca. 3% from -x, ca. 97% from +x
Is this last result an error of the simulator? Or how can it be explained?
Hi Renata Wong ,
I think there is an error in the simulator, probably because it is not well -programmed to handle with angles greater than 180. Try putting -90 instead of 270, and you will obtain a consistent result.
Hello Marcos Souza ,
thank you. It indeed appears to be a programming issue. -90 worked perfectly.
I absolutely gaurantee that at least 10 answers will attempt to invoke the HUP: the black box for everything.
The issue has to do with helicity, mass limits to v
William Bray ,
thank you for your interesting reply. You say that magnetic and electric bosons possess mass "by convention". Does it mean that such bosons are modal concepts, i.e., we actually do not know whether they exist?
I am not a physicist, but if I understand you correctly, it is not the original particles but rather the E and M bosons that are detected at a given aperture. Assuming that photons are emitted and enter the Stern-Gerlach apparatus. As photons are usually thought of as mass-less particles, does the information transfer, i.e., the detection also happen via the bosons? If so, where does the mass of the bosons come from?
Also, if possible could you please elaborate on why particle physicists find these bosons inconvenient?
The only 'particles' that have a mass description are the E and M bosons; no other wave function has a mass description. We cannot detect wave functions, only their E and M [virtual, off-shell massive] bosons.
The Higg's was supposed to elaborate on this, albeit, the 'hello' hypothesis did not work out as such; cannot describe a fermion mass.
William Bray ,
Do you think the E and M bosons have anything to do with the assumed existence of electric and magnetic fields created by a moving charge?
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