Improvement of the polarized neutron interferometer setup demonstrating violation of a Bell-like inequality

Abstract

For precise measurements with polarized neutrons high efficient spin-manipulation is required. We developed several neutron optical elements suitable for a new sophisticated setup, i.e., DC spin-turners and Larmor-accelerators which diminish thermal disturbances and depolarisation considerably. The gain in performance is exploited demonstrating violation of a Bell-like inequality for a spin-path entangled single-neutron state. The obtained value of S=2.365(13), which is much higher than previous measurements by neutron interferometry, is 28 $\sigma$ above the limit of S=2 predicted by contextual hidden variable theories. The new setup is more flexible referring to state preparation and analysis, therefore new, more precise measurements can be carried out.