carousel analogy

[Bruno S.]

The three different contributions (dipole, orbital and Fermi) to the magnetic hyperfine field can be explained using the carousel analogy as follows:

– for the dipole contribution, imagine the child sitting on the edge of the carousel holding the bar magnet. Then the magnetometer, which is found in the center of the carousel, would measure the dipole contribution (here it doesn’t matter if the carousel is rotating or not).

-for the orbital contribution, imagine the child sitting again on the edge of the carousel holding the electrically charged ball, but now the carousel is rotating. Then the magnetometer in the center of the carousel would measure the orbital contribution that comes from the motion of the electrically charged ball.

-for the Fermi contribution, imagine the child sitting not on the edge but somewhere inside of the carousel and holding the bar magnet. Then the magnetometer in the center of the carousel would measure the Fermi contribution that is due to the bar magnet being closer to the center than in the dipole case (i.e. electrons being inside the nucleus).

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