Simulation of atom trajectories in the original Stern–Gerlach experiment

Creators: Mostafaeipour, Faraz¹; Kahraman, S Süleyman¹; Titimbo, Kelvin¹; Tan, Yixuan¹; Wang, Lihong V.¹

1. California Institute of Technology

Abstract

Following a comprehensive analysis of the historical literature, we model the geometry of the Stern–Gerlach experiment to numerically calculate the magnetic field using the finite-element method. Using this calculated field and Monte Carlo methods, the semiclassical atomic translational dynamics are simulated to produce the well-known quantized end-pattern with matching dimensions. The finite-element method used provides the most accurate description of the Stern–Gerlach magnetic field and end-pattern in the literature, matching the historically reported values and figures.

Copyright and License

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank D. C. Garrett, Z. He, and A. Bengtsson for their insights when discussing this work. This project has been made possible in part by grant number 2020-225832 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Data Availability

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).

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