Multimode structured neutron beams
Abstract
The experimental realization of neutron orbital angular momentum (OAM) states and neutron Airy beams has opened new avenues for structured neutron science in both materials characterization and fundamental physics. These additional degrees of freedom in scattering experiments enable the exploration of selection rules for neutrons, the analysis of scattering properties in topological materials, and the generation of auto-focusing neutron beams. In the effort to enhance the amount of spatial and angular-momentum information retrievable from a single measurement, and to overcome current phase-grating efficiency limits, here we demonstrate multimode structured neutron beams that enable simultaneous access to multiple, well-defined OAM modes, and to hybrid combinations of OAM and Airy states. This multimode approach, analogous to wavelength- or OAM-multiplexing in optics, facilitates the efficient investigation of material scattering properties and nuclear interactions with a neutron source composed of a discretized OAM spectrum.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.07662,
title = {Multimode structured neutron beams},
author = {Owen Lailey and Dusan Sarenac and Charles W. Clark and David G. Cory and Lisa DeBeer-Schmitt and Huseyin Ekinci and Davis V. Garrad and Melissa E. Henderson and Michael G. Huber and Priyanka Vadnere and Kirill Zhernenkov and Dmitry A. Pushin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.07662},
year = {2025}
}