Faraday rotation of electron spin polarization

Abstract

Electron-atom spin exchange collision is described in terms of Stokes parameters. It is shown that if the incident electron beam has a polarization component perpendicular to that of the target then the former is rotated about the direction of the target polarization in a manner analogous to the Faraday rotation of optical polarization. The angle of rotation depends mainly on the phase shift between the triplet and singlet scattering amplitudes. It is pointed out that the electron spin rotation occurring in Mott is analogous to the rotation of the plane of polarization of light by media of natural activity.