Observation of Scissors Modes in solid state systems with a SQUID

The occurrence of scissors modes in crystals that have deformed ions in their cells has been predicted some time ago. The theoretical value of their energy is rather uncertain, however, ranging between 10 and a few tenths of eV, with the corresponding widths of 10^-7, 10^-6 eV. Their observation by resonance fluorescence experiments therefore requires a photon spectrometer covering a wide energy range with a very high resolving power. We propose and discuss a new experiment in which such difficulties are overcome by measuring with a SQUID the variation of the magnetic field associated with the excitation of scissors modes.