Rotational Doppler Effect and Barnett Field in Spinning NMR

We report the observation of the rotational Doppler effect using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). We have developed a coil-spinning technique that enables measurements by rotating a detector and fixing a sample. We found that the rotational Doppler effect gives rise to NMR frequency shifts equal to the rotation frequency. We formulate the rotational Doppler effect and the Barnett field using a vector model for the nuclear magnetic moment. This formulation reveals that, with just the sample rotating, both effects cancel each other, thereby explaining the absence of an NMR frequency shift in conventional sample-spinning NMR measurements.