ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Probing the Goos-Hanchen effect with entangled neutrons

Abstract: The fact that rays incident upon and reflected from a surface cross at a point slightly behind the reflecting surface was first postulated by Sir Isaac Newton and measured in 1947 for light by Goos and Hanchen (GH). A 2010 experiment on Offspec showed a phase shift between oppositely polarized neutrons reflected from a magnetic surface that was interpreted as evidence for a neutron GH effect. Theories purporting to describe the GH effect for neutrons give different results. We propose accurate measurements on Larmor to resolve this issue. The experiments will be guided by on-going dynamical simulations of entangled neutrons reflecting from surfaces and bear on the potential of using entangled neutrons as a new probe of matter.

Public release date: 20 November 2026

Experimenter: Dr Stephen Kuhn
Local Contact: Dr Robert Dalgliesh
Experimenter: Dr Jonathan Leiner
Experimenter: Dr Victor Otto de Haan
Experimenter: Dr Fankang Li
Experimenter: Dr Steven Parnell
Experimenter: Dr Jeroen Plomp
Experimenter: Dr Samuel McKay
Experimenter: Professor Roger Pynn

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2310496-1

Parent DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2310496

ISIS Experiment Number: RB2310496

Part Number: 1

Date of Experiment: 14 November 2023

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Stephen Kuhn et al; (2023): Probing the Goos-Hanchen effect with entangled neutrons, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2310496-1

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.