Week of 4/21/08

Latest revision as of 16:22, 25 April 2008

This week we will be talking about spin, in electrons and photons.

First lets read about the angular momentum of light, in the photon picture.

Photon orbital angular momentum and circular polarization

Helicity

Chirality

PLEASE read text on page 176 and the top of 177. You will likely want to read it several times to make sure you understand it. It contains the simplest example of some of the apparent paradoxes you will face in quantum mechanics. Hence, once you understand this, you can always fall back on this to help you work your way through more complicated examples.

Download 4/21/08. Spin

4/23

nice precession/Larmor frequency animation

Stern-Gerlach

Download more on spin. applications. examples.

The Stern-Gerlach Experiment, Electron Spin, and Correlation Experiments

4/25

Stern-Gerlach java applet

PHET simulation shows how you can chose the orientation of the magnet to be anything you like and still get two eigenvalues corresponding to 50% "up" and 50% "down".

Article from Physics Today on the SGE. Nice anecdote on the role that cigar smoke played in the success of this experiment.

Otto Stern's Nobel lecture from December 1946.

Download Stern-Gerlach, addition of spins for composite systems