In a helium dilution refrigerator 3He are mixed in a special chamber to obtain extremely low temperatures. A Bainbridge mass spectrometer is used to measure the ratio of the two isotopes.
(a) If the spectrometer were used with 100 V cm–1 between the plates and a magnetic field of 0.2 T, what would be the speed of an ion that can pass through the velocity filter?
(b) If the velocity-filter exit slit were 1 mm wide, could this machine resolve the two isotopes?