Reinterpretation of the effects of the Earth's rotation and gravity on the neutron-interferometry experiment

– The phase shift of matter wave due to the Earth’s rotation and gravity has been demonstrated in the neutron-interferometry experiments where the Bragg reflection of the neutron wave from crystals is used to form a closed path. In the literature, the rotationinduced phase shift is ascribed to an extra energy term associated with angular momentum in the Hamiltonian. In this investigation, based on a classical treatment of the collision of neutrons with the lattice planes, the modifications in the particle velocity due to the Earth’s rotation as well as those due to gravity are calculated. Then, in conjunction with the relation between the particle velocity and the propagation vector of matter wave, it is shown that the corresponding phase shifts in matter wave are in accord with the interference experiments. Thereby, based on the velocity modification due to collision, a reinterpretation of the effects of the Earth’s rotation and gravity on the neutron-wave interference is presented. Meanwhile, a null effect of the Earth’s orbital motion is predicted. Introduction. – The wave nature of particles has been initiated by de Broglie by postulating that a particle is associated with a matter wave the wavelength of which is related to the momentum of the particle. The matter wavelength was first demonstrated by Davisson and Germer in the Bragg reflection of an electron beam from a crystal. More recently, the neutron-wave loop interferometry has been achieved, where two matter waves are coherently split from a particle beam, propagate, respectively, along separated paths, and then are combined to cause an interference depending on the phase difference between them. By using the loop interferometry, the effects of the Earth’s rotation and gravity on the phase shift of a neutron beam have been demonstrated with high precision [1,2]. The rotation-induced phase shift is accounted for by introducing an extra interaction term of angular momentum in the Hamiltonian, in addition to a term of gravitational potential energy. Thus, the canonical momentum, to which the matter wavelength is supposed to be related, incorporates a term associated with the Earth’s rotation [1, 2]. In this way the effect of the Earth’s rotation on the matter wave, like that of the gravitational potential, is supposed tacitly to be a function of space during the particle’s travelling along the paths.