Answer to Question #126173 in Atomic and Nuclear Physics for eli

Question

In the Stern-Gerlach experiment a beam of silver atoms were made to pass through a long, narrow gap which had an inhomogeneous transverse magnetic eld. The direction of the eld is the same, and perpendicular to the atomic beam, at all points in the gap. The expected and observed images of the beam with the magnetic eld are shown in the gure below. Stern and Gerlach had assumed that the silver atoms were in an L = 1 state. In hindsight, is their observation consistent with their assumptions? What is a reasonable conclusion from this experiment

Answer 1

By studying the deflection of a beam of silver atoms in a strongly inhomogeneous magnetic field Gerlach and Stern obtained an experimental result that contradicts the common sense prediction: the beam, instead of expanding, splits into two separate beams giving two spots of equal intensity [N.sup.+] and [N.sup.-] on a detector, at equal distances from the axis of the original beam.

Historically, this is the experiment which helped establish spin quantization. Theoretically, it is the seminal experiment posing the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics. Today it is the theory of decoherence with the diagonalization of the density matrix that is put forward to explain the first part of the measurement process. However, although these authors consider the Stern-Gerlach experiment as fundamental, they do not propose a calculation of the spin decoherence time.

For more mathematical details you should convert this question to paid task.

Refrerence:https://www.hindawi.com/journals/physri/2014/605908/