Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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SYRN: From quantisation in the gravitational field to correlated electron systems - Perspectives of research with neutrons

SYRN 1: Perspectives of research with neutrons

SYRN 1.8: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 18:00–18:30, TU HE101

Neutrons as Quantum Objects — •Helmut Rauch — Atominstitut der Oesterreichischen Universitaeten, 1020 Wien, Austria

Neutrons are widely used for the investigation of static and dynamic properties in condensed matter research. In this area the kinematical features, like energy, momentum and the direction of the magnetic moment of the neutron play a central role. On the other hand neutrons are also ideal tools for the observation of quantum phenomena with massive particles . Many pioneering experiments in quantum optics were first performed with neutrons, like the observation of the 4pi-symmetry of spinors, the spin-superposition law, the magnetic Josephson effect and various post-selection experiments. Most of these experiments have employed perfect crystal neutron interferometers in which widely separated coherent beams can be manipulated individually. More recently, a confinement induced neutron phase has been measured that results from the transverse quantization of the neutron wave-function between narrow slits, indicating that the neutron is influenced by the walls even though it does classically not touch them. This demonstrates the non-local feature of quantum mechanics and stimulated work to demonstrate, for the first time, the property of quantum contextuality, which means that even commuting variables can be correlated (entangled). Various quantum optics methods can be adapted to neutrons, like quantum state reconstruction, quantum state engineering, phase space compression and phase space transformation. New understanding of quantum phenomena and novel beam tailoring techniques may arise from the application of these methods.