In this paper it is presented a manifestly covariant formulation of the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) phase difference for the magnetic AB effect. This covariant AB phase is written in terms of the Faraday 2-form F and using the decomposition of F in terms of the electric and magnetic fields as four-dimensional (4D) geometric quantities. It is shown that there is a static electric field outside a stationary solenoid with resistive conductor carrying steady current, which causes that the AB phase difference in the magnetic AB effect may be determined by the electric part of the covariant expression, i.e., by the local influence of the 4D electric field and not, as generally accepted, in terms of nonzero vector potential.
Whether the time-dependent Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect even exists or not has been the subject of long-standing debate. There are two factors complicating the problem. First, in the closed spacetime line integral of the vector potential that is thought to give the AB-phase shift, how to treat the time-varying vector potential is highly nontrivial. Second, the time-varying magnetic flux generates induced electric field even outside the solenoid. In the present paper, motivated by a recent work by Gao, we re-investigate the role of the induced electric field with the utmost care. This analysis reveals a highly nontrivial effect of the induced electric field, which turns out to be useful for verifying the very existence of the time-dependent AB-effect.
In classical electrodynamics the vacuum is defined as a region where there are no electric or magnetic fields. In such a region, a charged particle (such as an electron) will feel no effect — the Lorentz force is zero. The space ex-ternal to a perfect (i.e., infinite) solenoid can be considered an electromagnetic vacuum, since ~E and ~B vanish there. While a non-zero vector potential ~A does exist outside the solenoid, it can exert no influence on the particle, and as such cannot be directly detected or quantified classically. However, in 1959 Aharonov and Bohm predicted that a vector field would exert a purely quantum-mechanical effect on the phase of the particle’s wave function, which in principle should be detectable. The predicted phase shift was not observed experimentally until 1986, when Tonomura brilliantly verified the effect using a microscopic solenoid. This paper provides a simplified explanation of the Aharonov-Bohm prediction using a path-integral approach that is suitable for the advanced undergraduate. 1.
The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect highlights the fundamental role of electromagnetic potentials in quantum mechanics, manifesting as a phase shift for a charged particle in field-free regions. While well-established for static magnetic fluxes, the effect's behavior under time-varying fluxes remains an open and debated question. Employing the WKB method, we derive the AB phase shift for a time-dependent magnetic vector potential, demonstrating that for circular paths in the quasistatic regime, it is proportional to the time-averaged enclosed magnetic flux,
ΔφAB=T1∫0TeΦ(t)dt, with the total phase shift, including kinetic contributions, equaling
eΦ(0). For non-circular paths, the phase shift depends on both the flux history and path geometry, revealing the effect's hybrid nature involving gauge potentials and induced electric fields. We verify the consistency of our gauge choice with Maxwell's equations and discuss the implications for local versus nonlocal interpretations of the AB effect. We also generalize the results to scenarios with nonzero external magnetic fields, where the enclosed flux is through the actual electron paths, and for circular paths of radius
R, the AB phase shift is also proportional to the time average of the enclosed flux
Φenc(R,t), with the total phase shift depending only on the initial enclosed flux
eΦenc(R,0); for general non-circular paths, the external magnetic field affects trajectories and phase accumulation through the Lorentz force, leading to additional path dependence. These findings clarify the role of gauge-dependent potentials and induced fields in the generalized AB effect, offering new theoretical insights and potential applications in quantum technologies.
We study the time-dependent Aharonov–Bohm effect on the noncommutative space. Because there is no net Aharonov–Bohm phase shift in the time-dependent case on the commutative space, therefore, a tiny deviation from zero indicates new physics . Based on the Seiberg–Witten map we obtain the gauge invariant and Lorentz covariant Aharonov–Bohm phase shift in general case on noncommutative space. We find there are two kinds of contribution: momentum-dependent and momentum-independent corrections. For the momentum-dependent correction, there is a cancellation between the magnetic and electric phase shifts, just like the case on the commutative space. However, there is a non-trivial contribution in the momentum-independent correction. This is true for both the time-independent and time-dependent Aharonov–Bohm effects on the noncommutative space. However, for the time-dependent Aharonov–Bohm effect, there is no overwhelming background which exists in the time-independent Aharonov–Bohm effect on both commutative and noncommutative space. Therefore, the time-dependent Aharonov–Bohm can be sensitive to the spatial noncommutativity. The net correction is proportional to the product of the magnetic fluxes through the fundamental area represented by the noncommutative parameter θ , and through the surface enclosed by the trajectory of charged particle. More interestingly, there is an anti-collinear relation between the logarithms of the magnetic field B and the averaged flux Φ / N ( N is the number of fringes shifted). This nontrivial relation can also provide a way to test the spatial noncommutativity. For B Φ / N ∼ 1 , our estimation on the experimental sensitivity shows that it can reach the 10 GeV scale. This sensitivity can be enhanced by using stronger magnetic field strength , larger magnetic flux, as well as higher experimental precision on the phase shift.
We discuss the situation of Aharonov–Bohm effect under self-duality condition of electromagnetic field, where there is no exact cancellation of the AB(t) phase shift because this phase shift is complex. This means that the time-dependent AB effect, magnetic AB phase shift is not canceled out by a phase shift coming from the Lorentz force with E=−∂tA. Our approach can be compared with the results obtained by other authors which have shown that AB(t) effect vanishes for Abelian electromagnetic plane waves.