Measuring Spin of Particle in an Arbitrary Direction We have two options to determine how many neutrons pass through the

magnetized foil. First is to add the geometry of the foil, give it a fermi potential, and attempt to transmit neutrons through (in this case transmittance is mostly deterministic; it depends on the kinetic energy of the particle and the potential energy B. The only probabilistic component is the possibility of a QM reflection) Second option is to calculate the probablility of measuring the neutron's spin 'up' in the z-direction at the foil, and roll dice assuming that all spin-up neutrons will pass through. This is calculated below. A normalized spinor for spin-1/2 in the (ux,uy,uz) direction (which works for all spin states except spin down where it will give 0/0), is: (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics) )

u =
We want to measure the spin with respect to the z-axis, which has spinor z+

= [1 0]T

The probability of measuring the spin of our particle up in the z+ direction is the product:

P(z+) = | < z+| u > | 2 P(z+) = [( 1 + uz)(1) + (ux + iuy )(0)]2 / ( 2+2uz ) P(z+) = ( 1 + uz) / 2
So for each particle we would calculate this probablility and roll dice to determine if it gets through.