arXiv:2512.21263

Observation of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect in Pilot-Wave Hydrodynamics

Georgi Gary Rozenman, Kyle I. McKee, Arnaud Lazarus, Valeri Frumkin, John W M Bush

physics.flu-dynquant-phSubmitted Dec 24, 2025• Announced Dec 25, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

We report the results of an experimental study of an analog of the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect achieved with the hydrodynamic pilot-wave system. A walking droplet is confined to an annular cavity that encircles a shielded vortex, but lies outside its range of direct influence. While there is no vortex-induced flow in the immediate vicinity of the droplets, the vortex modifies the droplet's spatially extended pilot-wave field that guides its motion, producing a vortex-dependent bias in the droplet's orbital speed. High-speed tracking and delay-embedding reconstructions yield Wigner-like phase-space distributions for this hydrodynamic system that exhibits a rigid, flux-dependent translation, providing a force-free, gauge-like realization of an AB-type phase.

Comments: 12 pages, 4 figures

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