Comment on "Relativistic effects in atom and neutron interferometry and the differences between them" by Greenberger, Schleich and Rasel

Hartmut Lemmel

Published 2014-06-05Version 1

Bragg diffraction is comparable to a hard-wall reflection if the Bragg condition is exactly fulfilled. However, in a neutron interferometer in the gravitational field (COW experiment) this is not the case and the momentum transfers should not be described by hard wall reflection, as it has been done in the commented article. Instead, and quite similar to the atom case, each mirror or beam splitter creates a constant momentum transfer given by the reciprocal lattice vector of the Bragg crystal. To lowest order there are no differences between the atom and the neutron case.