We study the relativistic nature of the interactions that, at tree level, generate spin correlations between two electrons in Møller scattering, as well as in an extended process involving a witness particle
C. The corresponding processes,
e−e−→e−e− and
e−e−C→e−e−C, are analyzed both in the center-of-mass frame and, for the former process, in a Lorentz-boosted frame where Wigner rotations arise. It is found that, through a nonrelativistic approximation of the scattering amplitudes, dipole-dipole and current-dipole interactions are responsible for the emergence of these correlations. This is evidenced by the variation of the von Neumann entropy of one electron for initially separable states, and of
C for an initially prepared three-particle entangled W-state. In Wigner rotations, the invariance of entropy under local unitary transformations is maintained at the expense of the emergence of quantum coherence in the density matrix at large rapidities. As a consequence, the final states of both particles are evaluated and shown to encode information about the scattering process through their spin expectation values. This framework is then used to comment on the correlations in the inelastic process
e−e+→μ−μ+, for which some research has reported differing results.
Abstract In two recent papers, Blum and Lohmann (2016 Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 033201) and Lohmann et al (2016 Phys. Rev. A 94 032331), the possibility of continuously varying the degree of entanglement between an elastically scattered electron and the valence electron of quasi-one electron targets was discussed. Here we present results for elastic electron scattering from atomic hydrogen in the energy regime of 1−10 eV and the full range of scattering angles 0 ° − 180 ° . We confirm previous calculations at very low energies, which predicted that the hydrogen target is not a promising candidate for Bell correlations through electron collisions. This finding remains unchanged in the near-resonance regime of incident electron energies just below 10 eV. In addition to the spin-correlation parameter P , we present the angle-integrated total cross section, as well as the angle-differential cross section at a few representative collision energies.