Published in

American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 26(110)

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.110.264801

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Detecting Transition Radiation from a Magnetic Moment

Journal article published in 2013 by Igor P. Ivanov ORCID, Dmitry V. Karlovets
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Electromagnetic radiation can be emitted not only by particle charges but also by magnetic moments and higher electric and magnetic multipoles. However experimental proofs of this fundamental fact are extremely scarce. In particular, the magnetic moment contribution has never been observed in any form of polarization radiation. Here, we propose to detect it using vortex electrons carrying large orbital angular momentum (OAM) \ell. The relative contribution of the OAM-induced magnetic moment, \ell \hbar ω/E_e, becomes much larger than the spin-induced contribution \hbar ω/E_e, and it can be observed experimentally. As a particular example, we consider transition radiation from vortex electrons obliquely incident on an interface between a vacuum and a dispersive medium, in which the magnetic moment contribution manifests itself via a left-right angular asymmetry. For electrons with E_e = 300 keV and \ell = 100-1000, we predict an asymmetry of the order of 0.1%-1%, which could be measured with existing technology. Thus, vortex electrons emerge as a new tool in the physics of electromagnetic radiation. ; Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; v2: various language improvements, expanded discussion and references, results unchanged, matches the published version