Physical Review A
Electromagnetic coupling in charged damped systems: Classical and quantum considerations
Ashok V. Pimpale, Mohsen Razavy
Abstract
Electromagnetic interactions of a single charged particle in the presence of damping are investigated theoretically in this work. Classically, by considering the explicit example of a particle in a constant magnetic field, it is shown that the minimal coupling prescription is inadequate for the infinitely large number of Hamiltonians from which the equations of motion in the presence of damping are derivable by Hamilton's equations. The use of minimal coupling procedure to switch on electromagnetic interactions in phenomenological quantum equations of damped motion is shown to lead to incorrect equations in the classical limit. It is necessary to consider the microscopic models of damping to allow for electromagnetic interactions in these systems. Two microscopic models for damping involving a linear coupling with a heat bath of oscillators are considered in detail and it is shown that correct Heisenberg equations of motion follow upon elimination of bath degrees of motion so that damping and Lorentz force do not affect each other. However, the field couples to the mechanical momentum as mv-(e/c)A rather than to the canonical momentum. The linearly coupled quantal case is analogous to the classical situation. The Schr\"odinger-Langevin equation contains an extra term ${\mathcal{F}}^{\mathrm{r}}$ A\ensuremath{\cdot}dr'; however, the gauge invariance character and the Aharonov-Bohm effect are unaffected. Two nonlinear models of damping are studied by considering the exchange of bosons in the different states of the central particle. In this situation the Lorentz force is not recovered in the classical limit.