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Updated: Jan 28, 2026
Magnetic Tweezers for the Measurement of Twist and Torque
Published on: May 19, 2014
Electric Quadrupole Moment and the Tensor Magnetic Polarizability of Twisted Electrons and a Potential for their
Alexander J Silenko1,2,3, Pengming Zhang1,4, Liping Zou1,4
1Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Abstract:
For a twisted (vortex) Dirac particle in nonuniform electric and magnetic fields, the relativistic Foldy-Wouthuysen Hamiltonian is derived including high order terms describing new effects. The result obtained shows for the first time that a twisted spin-1/2 particle possesses a tensor magnetic polarizability and a measurable (spectroscopic) electric quadrupole moment. We have calculated the former parameter and have evaluated the latter one for a twisted electron. The tensor magnetic polarizability of the twisted electron can be measured in a magnetic storage ring because a beam with an initial orbital tensor polarization acquires a horizontal orbital vector polarization. The electric quadrupole moment is rather large and strongly influences the dynamics of the intrinsic orbital angular momentum (OAM). Three different methods of its measurements, freezing the intrinsic orbital angular momentum and two resonance methods, are proposed. The existence of the quadrupole moment of twisted electrons can lead to practical applications.
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