Leggett-Garg inequality violation in muon $g-2$ experiments

We present the first study of Leggett-Garg inequality violation in polarized muon spin precession. We formulate a procedure to reconstruct temporal correlators of the longitudinal muon polarization from measured time-dependent muon decay spectra and apply it to publicly available Fermilab Muon $g-2$ data corresponding to approximately $10$ billion muon decays. Using a simplified model of the detector acceptance and efficiency, the Leggett-Garg inequality is found to be violated with a single-bin significance of $5.5\sigma$, while combining neighboring bins further increases the significance. While our analysis is limited by systematic uncertainties associated with the detector modeling, a dedicated experimental analysis could reduce these uncertainties toward the statistical level, $\mathcal{O}(10^{-3})$, potentially enabling one of the most precise measurements of temporal quantum correlations.

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Publication Details

Journal
Reports on Progress in Physics
Published
2026-10-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/aeb43f
Primary Topic
Quantum Mechanics and Applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Leggett-Garg inequality violation in muon $g-2$ experiments

Brian Batell, Kun Cheng, Morgan E. Cassidy
Reports on Progress in Physics
Quantum Mechanics and Applications
article

Leggett-Garg inequality violation in muon $g-2$ experiments

Brian Batell, Kun Cheng, Morgan E. Cassidy
article en

Abstract

We present the first study of Leggett-Garg inequality violation in polarized muon spin precession. We formulate a procedure to reconstruct temporal correlators of the longitudinal muon polarization from measured time-dependent muon decay spectra and apply it to publicly available Fermilab Muon $g-2$ data corresponding to approximately $10$ billion muon decays. Using a simplified model of the detector acceptance and efficiency, the Leggett-Garg inequality is found to be violated with a single-bin significance of $5.5\sigma$, while combining neighboring bins further increases the significance. While our analysis is limited by systematic uncertainties associated with the detector modeling, a dedicated experimental analysis could reduce these uncertainties toward the statistical level, $\mathcal{O}(10^{-3})$, potentially enabling one of the most precise measurements of temporal quantum correlations.

Reports on Progress in Physics
University of Pittsburgh (US)
National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, High Energy Physics
Openalex Percentile: Top 56%
Quantum Mechanics and Applications
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