Is there any plausible experiment by which chirality oscillations in electrons could be observed experimentally, such as through some analogy to neutrino oscillation experiments?
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asked Mar 19, 2013 at 4:24
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1$\begingroup$ The presence of an electron mass... $\endgroup$– MichaelCommented Mar 19, 2013 at 5:30
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1$\begingroup$ @MichaelBrown can you be more explicit? The same electron mass for both chiralities? $\endgroup$– anna vCommented Mar 19, 2013 at 10:37
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4$\begingroup$ The fact that an electron has mass produces oscillations between chiralities. The fact that you can stop an electron is proof that chirality is not a good quantum number for electrons. :) That said: there is a bid difference in scale between electron and neutrino neutrino masses. So to observe chirality oscillations you would need a short distance probe that treats the two chiralities differently, like... the weak interactions. :) $\endgroup$– MichaelCommented Mar 19, 2013 at 11:39
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1$\begingroup$ Indeed you see "helicity" supressed weak decays of the $\pi^\pm$. You could just as well call it chirality supression since what is being measured is the rotation between chirality and helicity eigenstates which is the result of the mass term. $\endgroup$– MichaelCommented Mar 19, 2013 at 11:40
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1$\begingroup$ Well, neutrinos are detected through the weak interaction, so it will be oscillation length . If for electrons this is of measurable order then one could create a beam of positive chirality electrons (from the appropriate pion decay) and measure a capture rate on an appropriate nucleus. One needs numbers for this, but if it is linear in the mass and neutrinos are of order of ev, it might be doable since to see neutrino oscillations one needs kilometers. $\endgroup$– anna vCommented Mar 20, 2013 at 5:42
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1 Answer
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In its rest frame an electron is always equal parts left- and right-handed chirality.
