Nonextensive statistics in spin precession

Abstract

Many experiments utilize the precession of trapped particles in magnetic fields to perform high precision measurements. It had been presumed that after free precession, initially polarized particles will form a Gaussian phase distribution in the plane of precession. We show that trapped particles in the presence of magnetic field gradients and electric fields will often form a non-Gaussian distribution with power-law tails which are consistent with nonextensive statistics. As the exact shape of the distribution depends upon many experimental parameters, it provides a potential new technique to directly measure them.