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The Sokolov–Ternov effect is the effect of self-polarization of relativistic electrons or positrons moving at high energy in a magnetic field. The self-polarization occurs through the emission of spin-flip synchrotron radiation. The effect was predicted by Igor Ternov and the prediction rigorously justified by Arseny Sokolov using exact solutions to the Dirac equation. ==Theory== An electron in a magnetic field can have its spin oriented in the same ("spin up") or in the opposite ("spin down") direction with respect to the direction of the magnetic field (which is assumed to be oriented "up"). The "spin down" state has a higher energy than "spin up" state. The polarization arises due to the fact that the rate of transition through emission of synchrotron radiation to the "spin down" state is slightly greater than the probability of transition to the "spin up" state. As a result, an initially unpolarized beam of high-energy electrons circulating in a storage ring after sufficiently long time will have spins oriented in the direction opposite to the magnetic field. Saturation is not complete and is explicitly described by the formula〔 Section 21.3 for the theory and section 27.2 for experimental verifications of the Sokolov–Ternov effect.〕 : where is the limiting degree of polarization (92.4%) and is the relaxation time, : Here is as before, and are the mass and charge of the electron, is the speed of light, is the Schwinger field, is the magnetic field, and is the electron energy. The limiting degree of polarization is less than one due to the existence of spin-orbital energy exchange which allows for transitions to the "spin up" state (with probability 25.25 times less than to the "spin down" state). Typical relaxation time is on the order of minutes and hours. Thus producing a highly polarized beam requires a long enough time and the use of storage rings. The self-polarization effect for positrons is similar, with the only difference that positrons will tend to have spins oriented in the direction parallel to the direction of the magnetic field.〔 Section 6.2.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sokolov–Ternov effect」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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