Magnetic guidance of charged particles

TL;DR

This paper reveals that the distribution of charged particles guided by magnetic fields is more complex than previously thought, showing singularities that impact detector responses and experimental precision.

Contribution

It provides new analytical point spread functions for magnetic particle transport that account for unexpected singularities, challenging prior assumptions.

Findings

Magnetic PSF deviates from previous models

Singularities cause high sensitivity in detector response

Implications for high-precision particle physics experiments

Abstract

Many experiments and devices in physics use static magnetic fields to guide charged particles from a source onto a detector, and we ask the innocent question: What is the distribution of particle intensity over the detector surface? One should think that the solution to this seemingly simple problem is well known. We show that, even for uniform guide fields, this is not the case and present analytical point spread functions (PSF) for magnetic transport that deviate strongly from previous results. The "magnetic" PSF shows unexpected singularities, which were recently also observed experimentally, and which make detector response very sensitive to minute changes of position, field amplitude, or particle energy. In the field of low-energy particle physics, these singularities may become a source of error in modern high precision experiments, or may be used for instrument tests, for instance in neutrino mass retardation spectrometers.