Spatial non-cyclic geometric phase in neutron interferometry
Loading...
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Description
We present a split-beam neutron interferometric experiment to test the non-cyclic geometric phase tied to the spatial evolution of the system: the subjacent two-dimensional Hilbert space is spanned by the two possible paths in the interferometer and the evolution of the state is controlled by phase shifters and absorbers. A related experiment was reported previously by some of the authors [Hasegawa et al., PRA 53, 2486 (1996)] to verify the cyclic spatial geometric phase. The interpretation of this experiment, namely to ascribe a geometric phase to this particular state evolution, has met severe criticism [Wagh, PRA 59, 1715 (1999)]. The extension to non-cyclic evolution manifests the correctness of the interpretation of the previous experiment by means of an explicit calculation of the non-cyclic geometric phase in terms of paths on the Bloch-sphere. The theoretical treatment comprises the cyclic geometric phase as a special case, which is confirmed by experiment.
presented at the Int. Conference on Precision Measurements with Slow Neutrons, April 2004, NIST, Gaithersburg, US
presented at the Int. Conference on Precision Measurements with Slow Neutrons, April 2004, NIST, Gaithersburg, US