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noospace
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Homework Statement
1. Consider a beam of z-oriented electrons, 80 % up, 20 % down which is passed through an x-oriented Stern-Gerlach machine. What percentage of electrons are measured in the +/- x-directions?
2. Consider deuterium. Nuclear spin = 1 with 1 electron orbiting in the n =1 state. Write down the ket for the total angular momentum [itex]|\frac{3}{2} \frac{1}{2}\rangle[/itex] as a linear combination of composite states.
The Attempt at a Solution
1. I write the eigenstates of [itex]S_z[/itex] in a superposition [itex]\sqrt{0.8} (1,0)^T + \sqrt{0.2} (1,0)^T[/itex] (where T denotes transpose) and set it equal to an linear combination of the [itex]S_x[/itex] eigenstates [itex]a(1,1)^T + b(1,-1)^T[/itex]. Solving for a and b I get 45 % and 5 %. Interestingly they don't add to 100 % which was what I was expecting. Is this physically reasonable?
2. Do I just write [itex]|3/2,3/2\rangle = |1,1\rangle |1/2,1/2 \rangle[/itex] and apply lowering operators? I can do this because l = 0 so there is no orbital contribution to the angular momentum right?