Manifestation of the geometric phase in neutron spin-echo experiments

Abstract

We show how the geometric (Berry's) phase becomes manifest on adiabatic rotation of the polarization vector in the magnetic field configuration in the arms in a neutron spin echo (NSE) experiment. When the neutron beam used is monochromatic, a geometric phase collected in one spin-echo arm can be exactly compensated in the other arm either by an opposite geometrical rotation or by adding/subtracting a dynamic (Larmor) phase. This is not possible in a white beam, because, contrary to the dynamic phase, the geometric phase is independent of wavelength. Therefore, the NSE pattern can be disturbed. We demonstrate that adiabatic resonant spin flippers inherently produce a geometric phase which can influence the performance of NSE setups based on such flippers. This effect can be avoided by a proper mutual symmetry of the gradient fields in these flippers.