As I understand, particles such as the neutron, whilst having no external charge still possess a magnetic moment due to the underlying charges of its components.
By that logic why does the alpha particle have a magnetic moment of zero?
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As I understand, particles such as the neutron, whilst having no external charge still possess a magnetic moment due to the underlying charges of its components. By that logic why does the alpha particle have a magnetic moment of zero? |
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This is actually the least hypothesis for this configuration. Four nucleons comprising all four allowed $\text{spin} \times \text{isospin}$ states can all be expected to be in the s1 state so that they have no orbital contribution and for each pair the intrinsic magnetic moments cancel as the spins are opposed. Boom. Zero and done. |
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