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American Journal of Physics

Nondispersive accelerating wave packets

Ioannis M. Besieris, Amr Mohamed Shaarawi, Richard W. Ziolkowski

Published Jun 1, 1994• 50 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Motivated by the work of Berry and Balazs and Greenberger on the 1-D Schrödinger equation, we have investigated a class of nonspreading solutions to the 3-D Schrödinger equation involving accelerating Airy envelopes. These solutions are characterized by an asymmetric structure, in contrast to recently derived spherically symmetric packets moving with constant velocities. The field of a characteristic Airy packet extends in an oscillatory fashion behind its peak amplitude, while it quickly disappears in front of the packet’s center. A particle modeled by such a packet seems to leave a wake of its field behind as it accelerates in a certain direction. On the other hand, a wave packet moving with a constant velocity has a field which is symmetrically distributed in all directions. Our work on Airy-type solutions to the 3-D Schrödinger equation has led us also to analogous solutions for the 3-D scalar wave equation.

DOI
10.1119/1.17510

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European Journal of Physics•Apr 7, 2009•21 citations
Motivated by the work of Berry and Balazs and Greenberger on the 1-D Schrödinger equation, we have investigated a class of nonspreading solutions to the 3-D Schrödinger equation involving accelerating Airy envelopes. These solutions are characterized by an asymmetric structure, in contrast to recently derived spherically symmetric packets moving with constant velocities. The field of a characteristic Airy packet extends in an oscillatory fashion behind its peak amplitude, while it quickly disappears in front of the packet’s center. A particle modeled by such a packet seems to leave a wake of its field behind as it accelerates in a certain direction. On the other hand, a wave packet moving with a constant velocity has a field which is symmetrically distributed in all directions. Our work on Airy-type solutions to the 3-D Schrödinger equation has led us also to analogous solutions for the 3-D scalar wave equation.
In 1979, Berry and Balazs [M V Berry and N L Balazs 1979 Am. J. Phys. 47 264] obtained a strict solution of the Schrödinger equation with Airy function used as the initial condition, and described the wave function represented by such solution as the Airy wave-packets. They discovered that infinite Airy wave-packet has unique properties such as non-spreading and free acceleration, proving that it is the only nontrivial non-spreading solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation in one dimension. However, the observing of the finite Airy beam seems to be more meaningful since wave-packets in reality is inevitably band limited. A certain form of finite Airy beam was investigated by Siviloglou et al. in 2007 [Siviloglou G A, Broky J, Dogariu A, Christodoulides D N 2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 213901; Siviloglou G A, Christodoulides D N 2007 Opt. Lett. 32 979]. They noted that the Airy wave packet still exhibits its most exotic feature, i.e., its trend toward free acceleration. While in the present paper we discuss the properties of Airy beam in a few steps further and propose several conclusions. On the one hand, a theoretic explanation is given to solve the matter of the centre of mass of infinite Airy beam. On the other hand, deeper research is conducted on the unique properties of finite Airy beam. Another form of finite Airy beam is discussed by reduction to absurdity, and its field distribution is put forward by numerical simulation. We find that the trajectory of the centroid holds its position, which means that the beam cannot accelerate freely as a whole. Ultimately, we have the conclusion that finite Airy beam can neither freely accelerate nor be non-diffractive.
We present the solution of Schrödinger’s equation for time-dependent quadratic potentials in terms of an Airy packet. We demonstrate new features of the Airy packet in light of its apparent unfamiliar properties discovered by Berry and Balazs (who found a nonspreading and accelerating Airy packet to be a unique solution to the free-particle Schrödinger equation). Our solution, found using space-time scale transformations, not only overcomes the packet’s tendency to accelerate, but also make it possible to spread or contract in time.
In this work, nondispersive wave packet solutions to linear partial differential equations are investigated. These solutions are characterized by infinite energy content; otherwise, they are continuous, nonsingular and propagate in free space without spreading out. Examples of such solutions are Berry and Balazs’ Airy packet, MacKinnon’s wave packet and Brittingham’s Focus Wave Mode (FWM). It is demonstrated in this thesis that the infinite energy content is not a basic problem per se and that it can be dealt with in two distinct ways. First these wave packets can be used as bases to construct highly localized, slowly decaying, time-limited pulsed solutions. In the case of the FWMs, this path leads to the formulation of the bidirectional representation, a technique that provides the most natural basis for synthesizing Brittingham-like solutions. This representation is used to derive new exact solutions to the 3-D scalar wave equation. It is also applied to problems involving boundaries, in particular to the propagation of a localized pulse in an infinite acoustic waveguide and to the launch ability of such a pulse from the opening of a semi-infinite waveguide. The second approach in dealing with the infinite energy content utilizes the bump-like structure of nondispersive solutions. With an appropriate choice of parameters, these bump fields have very large amplitudes around the centers, in comparison to their tails. In particular, the FWM solutions are used to model massless particles and are capable of providing an interesting interpretation to the results of Young’s two slit experiment and to the wave-particle duality of light. The bidirectional representation provides, also, a systematic way of deriving packet solutions to the Klein-Gordon, the Schrodinger and the Dirac equations. Nondispersive solutions of the former two equations are compared to previously derived ones, e.g., the Airy packet and MacKinnon's wave packet.
We show that for a wave ψ in the form of an Airy function the probability density ‖ψ‖2 propagates in free space without distortion and with constant acceleration. This ’’Airy packet’’ corresponds classically to a family of orbits represented by a parabola in phase space; under the classical motion this parabola translates rigidly, and the fact that no other curve has this property shows that the Airy packet is unique in propagating without change of form. The acceleration of the packet (which does not violate Ehrenfest’s theorem) is related to the curvature of the caustic (envelope) of the family of world lines in spacetime. When a spatially uniform force F (t) acts the Airy packet continues to preserve its integrity. We exhibit the solution of Schrödinger’s equation for general F (t) and discuss the motion for some special forms of F (t).