The travelling wave group is a solution to the wave equation. With a Gaussian envelope, this stable wave does not spread as it propagates. The group is derived for electromagnetic waves and converted with Planck’s law to quantized photons. The resulting wave is a probability amplitude, and this is adapted to particles subject to special relativity. By including mass and by inverting the wave group, a description for antiparticles is derived. The consequent explanation is consistent with Dirac’s relativistic equation and with his theory of the electron; while being more specific than his idea of the wave packet, and more stable. The travelling wave group is extended to describe the positron, either free or in an external field.
The travelling wave group is a solution to the wave equation. With a Gaussian envelope, this stable wave does not spread as it propagates. The group is derived for electromagnetic waves and converted with Planck’s law to quantized photons. The resulting wave is a probability amplitude, and this is adapted to particles subject to special relativity. By including mass and by inverting the wave group, a description for antiparticles is derived. The consequent explanation is consistent with Dirac’s relativistic equation and with his theory of the electron; while being more specific than his idea of the wave packet, and more stable. The travelling wave group is extended to describe the positron, either free or in an external field.
The traveling wave group that is defined on conserved physical values is the vehicle of transmission for a unidirectional photon or free particle having a wide wave front. As a stable wave packet, it expresses internal periodicity combined with group localization. An uncertainty principle is precisely derived that differs from Heisenberg’s. Also derived is the phase velocity beyond the horizon set by the speed of light. In this space occurs the reduction of the wave packet which is represented by comparing phase velocities in the direction of propagation with the transverse plane. The new description of the wave function for the stable free particle or antiparticle contains variables that were previously ignored. Deterministic physics must always appear probabilistic when hidden variables are bypassed. Secondary hidden variables always occur in measurement. The wave group turns out to be both uncertain and probabilistic. It is ubiquitous in physics and has many consequences.
We underscore the need of relativistic quantum mechanics in dealing with particles. Various notations used in relativity are defined and explained. We derive the Klein–Gordon equation for free particle as well as for particle in electromagnetic field. We obtain a solution and interpret it. We derive the Dirac equation for free particle as well as for particle in electromagnetic field. Plane wave solution to the Dirac equation is obtained. We show how spin of electron, idea of antiparticle , phenomena of pair production and pair annihilation follow from the Dirac equation.
In this paper, the quantum dynamics was obtained in the framework of the general theory of relativity, where a quantum particle is described by a distribution of matter, with amplitude functions of the matter density, in the two conjugate spaces of the spatial coordinates and of the momentum, called wave functions. For a free particle, these wave functions are conjugate wave packets in the coordinate and momentum spaces, with time-dependent phases proportional to the relativistic Lagrangian, as the wave velocities in the coordinate space are equal to the distribution velocity described by the wave packet in this space. From the wave velocities of the particle wave functions, Lorentz’s force and the Maxwell equations were obtained. From the wave/group equation in the momentum space describing the Lorentz force, the expressions of the electric and magnetic fields as functions of the electric potential conjugated to time and of the vector potential conjugated to the coordinates in the particle-field Lagrangian were obtained. With these expressions, the electric and magnetic fields that satisfy the Faraday-Maxwell law of electromagnetic induction and the two Gauss-Maxwell laws of these fields were obtained. The Ampère-Maxwell law is obtained only by taking into account the physical consistency of the matter-field interaction of the equality of the propagation field velocity with the maximum relativistic velocity c. For a quantum particle in the electromagnetic field, dynamic equations in the coordinate and momentum spaces and the particle and antiparticle wave functions were obtained. It was shown that the electromagnetic potentials as functions of the coordinates describing the matter distribution of the quantum particle do not alter this distribution – under the action of an electromagnetic a quantum particle moves as a whole. The scattering or tunneling rate in an electromagnetic field, for the two possible cases, with the spin conservation, or inversion, were obtained. This description of a quantum particle as a distribution of matter with a density amplitude/wavefunction of the form of a wave packet, with the time-dependent phase proportional to the relativistic Lagrangian as a function of the metric tensor including also the gravitational field, enables the application of this theory in quantum gravity and quantum field theory in agreement with general relativity.
The physics of special relativity is applied to a wave-packet model of a particle without the usual de Broglie-like assumption of Planck's rule, E = hv. The velocity of the particle is equated to the group-velocity of the wave-packet to associate the particle with its wave-packet. With such an identification it is demonstrated using special relativity that the momentum four-vector, P = [p, E/c2] of the particle is parallel and proportional to a central wave-number four-vector, K0 = [k0. ω0/c2], of the particle's wave-packet. The constant of proportionality, relating these two four-vectors, has the dimension of action and by diffraction experiments it has the value h/2π where h is Planck's constant. This refinement of the de Broglie wave-like nature of a particle suggests that special relativity underlies quantum physics more deeply than heretofore believed. The above quantum rules are used to find the wave-packet function in the one-dimensional case of a non-relativistic free particle and a particle in a conservative force field of potential V (x). This wave-packet function is shown to satisfy an integral time-evolution equation which relates the wave function at time t0 to the function at a slightly later time t. The resulting integral equation is equivalent to the propagator equation or path-integral hypothesised by Feynman. This fact also demonstrates, using the method of Feynman, that the wave-packet function satisfies Schrödinger's partial differential equation. The wave-packet function of a particle in a force field is directly shown to satisfy a linear integral equation which relates the wave-packet at one instant of time to its values at all later times. The kernel or propagator of this integral equation is also equivalent to Feynman's path integral. A computation demonstrates that the position of a moving particle in a simple quadratic potential well does not become more uncertain with the passage of time. This contrasts with the behaviour of a moving free particle which as a function of time becomes more and more difficult to accurately locate.
Essentially, we solve the particle-field equations obtained in the matter distribution quantum mechanics. In the framework of this theory, a particle is described by a density amplitude function, we call wave function, as a packet of waves with the time dependent phases proportional to the relativistic Lagrangian. The mass quantization of such a particle, as a distribution of matter, is obtained from the equality of the spatial integral of the density with the mass as a characteristic of the relativistic dynamics of this matter. The particle dynamics, as a motion of a mass spatial distribution, is obtained from the equality of the wave propagation velocities with the distribution coordinate velocities. This description is a physical one, compared to the Schrödinger-Heisenberg description leading to unphysical results as a null velocity for the kinetic energy as a constant of motion, or Zitterbewegung. The description of a particle interaction with an electromagnetic field by additional Lagrangian terms, with a vector potential conjugated to coordinates, as in the Aharonov-Bohm effect, and an electric potential conjugated to time, leads to the Lorentz force, and the Maxwell equations. In the two conjugated spaces, of the coordinates and of the momentum, the dynamics of a quantum particle is described by propagation operators, depending on the coordinate-momentum product, applied to time dependent wave functions satisfying matter-field equations. Unlike the standard Schrödinger or Schrödinger-Dirac equations, depending only on the Hamiltonian operator, instead of the Hamiltonian these equations contain the Lagrangian, which, besides the Hamiltonian, include additional terms with an explicit dependence on velocity, as it is expected in a relativistic theory. We obtain the wave function of a particle-antiparticle system interacting with an electromagnetic field, as a wave packet of spinors propagating in space with finite dimensions, given by the finite definition domain of the density function, in the space of the matter-field momentum, as a constant of motion. We show that an electrically charged quantum particle, rotating in a central electric field, generates a vector potential with a magnetic field perpendicular to the rotational plane and an electric field in this plane. By a quantum transition, a photon is emitted in the particle rotational plane, with the magnetic field perpendicular to this plane, and the electric field contained in this plane. In this framework, the vector potential rotation is correlated to a particle momentum rotation, for the canonical matter-field momentum as a constant of motion, without any electromagnetic field radiated outside.
The stable wave packet has been missing in quantum mechanics for a long time. A consistent argument finds, in antimatter, regular group and phase velocities, along with negative energy and negative mass. For this, a new wave function is derived for free antiparticles, consistent with the Feynman-Stueckelberg switching principle. The wave packet, expressing internal periodicity together with external confinement, is ubiquitous in physics. The stable wave packet has many consequences, a few of which are mentioned. They extend to the debate about what is measurable in physics and to localization of quantized properties in entangled particles.