Stern-Gerlach experiment

The Stern-Gerlach experiment involves passing a beam of spin- $12$ particles through an inhomogeneous magnetic field

𝐁 (𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧) = - 𝛼 𝑥 𝐢 + (𝐵 0 + 𝛼 𝑧) 𝐤

experiencing a force

𝐅 = 𝛾 𝛼 (- ˆ 𝑆 𝑥 𝐢 + ˆ 𝑆 𝑧 𝐤)

The $𝑥$ -component is averaged out due to Larmor precession, while the $𝑧$ -component will split the beam into $2 𝑠 + 1$ streams due to quantized spin.¹

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2018. Introduction to quantum mechanics, §4.4.4, pp. 174–175 ↩

Stern-Gerlach experiment

Footnotes