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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General

Some observations on the dynamics of the Aharonov-Bohm effect

Xingshu Zhu, Walter C. Henneberger

Published Sep 7, 1990• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is often said that the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect (1959) is an effect that is due to the vector potential. This is considered remarkable since a quantity that is not uniquely determined has a measurable effect. The authors show that, in the symmetric Coulomb gauge, (e/c)A(r) is simply the momentum of the electromagnetic field. The effect may equally well be considered an effect of the electromagnetic momentum. Thus, it is possible to discuss the AB effect strictly in terms of observables. The idea that the effect is due to the vector potential is correct, but sheds little light on the physics of the effect.

DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/23/17/027

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I am an author of the 1961 paper that first called the Aharonov-Bohm effect by that name. 1 1. M. Peshkin, I. Talmi, L. J. Tassie, Ann. Phys. 12, 426 (1961). The term has since appeared in more than 1000 published papers. However, it has been suggested a few times, most recently by Peter Sturrock and Timothy Groves, that the name does not do justice to Werner Ehrenberg and Raymond Siday, who found in 1949 that the motion of electrons can be influenced by magnetic fields confined to regions that the electrons do not enter. 2 2. W. Ehrenberg, R. E. Siday, Proc. Phys. Soc. B 62, 8 (1949). I argue that the name Aharonov-Bohm effect is appropriate, although for a reason that I did not fully appreciate in 1961.The 1959 Aharonov-Bohm paper profoundly changed the way we think about electromagnetic fields in quantum mechanics. 3 3. Y. Aharonov, D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 115, 485 (1959). The gauge-invariant part of the vector potential was promoted to a real physical field, not just a convenient device for summarizing certain information about the electric and magnetic fields. In the words of C. N. Yang, “The electromagnetic field strength fµv in quantum mechanics underdescribes electromagnetism, as the Bohm-Aharonov effect demonstrates … information about the phase factor exp[ie∮(A⋅dx)/ℏc] for all closed loops correctly describes electromagnetism.” 4 4. C. N. Yang, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in the Light of New Technology, Tokyo, 1983, S. Kamefuchi et al. , eds., Physical Society of Japan, Tokyo (1984), p. 5.See also T. T. Wu, C. N. Yang, Phys. Rev. D 12, 3845 (1975). A century earlier, James Clerk Maxwell changed the way we think about action at a distance by identifying what we now call the Maxwell fields as real physical things that contain energy and momentum and that enable microscopic conservation laws; they are not just mathematical functions that summarize the necessary information about the past motions of charges. Later those physical fields had to be quantized. Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm found that in quantum mechanics the Maxwell fields in a multiply connected region do not contain all the physics; the vector potential must also be endowed with reality to make sense of the subtler interactions in quantum mechanics. Neither Aharonov and Bohm nor Ehrenberg and Siday were the first to observe that magnetic fields in places where a charged particle’s wave function vanishes may influence the motion of that particle. 5 5. P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. R. Soc. London A 133, 60 (1931) F. London, Nature 140, 793 (1937). Paul Dirac, in his 1931 paper on magnetic monopoles, noted that the electron’s wavefunction must vanish on singular flux lines but said nothing about that raising any question of nonlocality. Fritz London pointed out in the 1930s that the motion of electrons in a superconducting ring depends on an external magnetic flux through the hole in the ring, where the electrons cannot go. He wrote in his 1937 paper, “The most stable state of a ring has no current, unless an external magnetic field is applied.” Like Dirac, he said nothing about a nonlocal action of the magnetic field being surprising or unusual. Of course, London, like Dirac, was focusing on something else.Ehrenberg and Siday were also focusing on something else—electron optics—when they found in 1949 that the motion of an electron can depend on the magnetic field in a region from which the electron is excluded. They chose not to mention that curious phenomenon in the abstract of their paper, although they did explicitly say elsewhere that it was “curious.”None of those earlier authors went on to conclude that such a phenomenon implies that the vector potential has to be seen as a real physical field in quantum mechanics. Only Aharonov and Bohm did that.REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<1. M. Peshkin, I. Talmi, L. J. Tassie, Ann. Phys. 12, 426 (1961). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI2. W. Ehrenberg, R. E. Siday, Proc. Phys. Soc. B 62, 8 (1949). Google ScholarCrossref3. Y. Aharonov, D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 115, 485 (1959). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI4. C. N. Yang, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in the Light of New Technology, Tokyo, 1983, S. Kamefuchi et al. , eds., Physical Society of Japan, Tokyo (1984), p. 5. Google ScholarSee also T. T. Wu, C. N. Yang, Phys. Rev. D 12, 3845 (1975). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI5. P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. R. Soc. London A 133, 60 (1931) Google ScholarCrossref F. London, Nature 140, 793 (1937). , Google ScholarCrossref© 2010 American Institute of Physics.

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It is often said that the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect (1959) is an effect that is due to the vector potential. This is considered remarkable since a quantity that is not uniquely determined has a measurable effect. The authors show that, in the symmetric Coulomb gauge, (e/c)A(r) is simply the momentum of the electromagnetic field. The effect may equally well be considered an effect of the electromagnetic momentum. Thus, it is possible to discuss the AB effect strictly in terms of observables. The idea that the effect is due to the vector potential is correct, but sheds little light on the physics of the effect.
The most popular interpretation of the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) effect is that the electromagnetic potential locally affects the complex phase of a charged particle’s wave function in the magnetic field free region. However, since the vector potential is a gauge-variant quantity, multiple researchers suspect that it is just a convenient tool for calculating the force field. This motivates them to explain the AB effect without using the vector potential, which inevitably leads to some sort of non-locality. This frustrating situation is shortly summarized by the statement by Aharonov et al. that the AB effect may be due to a local gauge potential or due to non-local gauge-invariant fields. In the present paper, we shall give several convincing arguments which support the viewpoint that the vector potential is not just a convenient mathematical tool with little physical entity. Despite its gauge arbitrariness, the vector potential certainly contains a gauge-invariant piece, which solely explains the observed AB phase shift. Importantly, this component has a property such that it is basically unique and cannot be eliminated by any regular gauge transformations. To complete the discussion, we also discuss the role of remaining gauge arbitrariness still contained in the entire vector potential.
This article describes the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect of electron waves travelling in free space and its application to the observation of gauge fields (vector potentials). The AB effect is inconceivable in classical physics since an observable effect is produced on electrons passing through field-free spaces. Electrons can be affected only by Lorentz forces due to electromagnetic fields. The situation is different in quantum mechanics, where electrons show wave properties: the concept of force is no longer relevant, so electric field E and magnetic field B, defined as forces acting on a unit charge, take on secondary meanings. “Phase shifts” come into play, and the primary physical entities become neither E nor B but electrostatic potential V and vector potential A. These potentials interact with electron waves and shift their phases.
I am an author of the 1961 paper that first called the Aharonov-Bohm effect by that name. 1 1. M. Peshkin, I. Talmi, L. J. Tassie, Ann. Phys. 12, 426 (1961). The term has since appeared in more than 1000 published papers. However, it has been suggested a few times, most recently by Peter Sturrock and Timothy Groves, that the name does not do justice to Werner Ehrenberg and Raymond Siday, who found in 1949 that the motion of electrons can be influenced by magnetic fields confined to regions that the electrons do not enter. 2 2. W. Ehrenberg, R. E. Siday, Proc. Phys. Soc. B 62, 8 (1949). I argue that the name Aharonov-Bohm effect is appropriate, although for a reason that I did not fully appreciate in 1961.The 1959 Aharonov-Bohm paper profoundly changed the way we think about electromagnetic fields in quantum mechanics. 3 3. Y. Aharonov, D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 115, 485 (1959). The gauge-invariant part of the vector potential was promoted to a real physical field, not just a convenient device for summarizing certain information about the electric and magnetic fields. In the words of C. N. Yang, “The electromagnetic field strength fµv in quantum mechanics underdescribes electromagnetism, as the Bohm-Aharonov effect demonstrates … information about the phase factor exp[ie∮(A⋅dx)/ℏc] for all closed loops correctly describes electromagnetism.” 4 4. C. N. Yang, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in the Light of New Technology, Tokyo, 1983, S. Kamefuchi et al. , eds., Physical Society of Japan, Tokyo (1984), p. 5.See also T. T. Wu, C. N. Yang, Phys. Rev. D 12, 3845 (1975). A century earlier, James Clerk Maxwell changed the way we think about action at a distance by identifying what we now call the Maxwell fields as real physical things that contain energy and momentum and that enable microscopic conservation laws; they are not just mathematical functions that summarize the necessary information about the past motions of charges. Later those physical fields had to be quantized. Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm found that in quantum mechanics the Maxwell fields in a multiply connected region do not contain all the physics; the vector potential must also be endowed with reality to make sense of the subtler interactions in quantum mechanics. Neither Aharonov and Bohm nor Ehrenberg and Siday were the first to observe that magnetic fields in places where a charged particle’s wave function vanishes may influence the motion of that particle. 5 5. P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. R. Soc. London A 133, 60 (1931) F. London, Nature 140, 793 (1937). Paul Dirac, in his 1931 paper on magnetic monopoles, noted that the electron’s wavefunction must vanish on singular flux lines but said nothing about that raising any question of nonlocality. Fritz London pointed out in the 1930s that the motion of electrons in a superconducting ring depends on an external magnetic flux through the hole in the ring, where the electrons cannot go. He wrote in his 1937 paper, “The most stable state of a ring has no current, unless an external magnetic field is applied.” Like Dirac, he said nothing about a nonlocal action of the magnetic field being surprising or unusual. Of course, London, like Dirac, was focusing on something else.Ehrenberg and Siday were also focusing on something else—electron optics—when they found in 1949 that the motion of an electron can depend on the magnetic field in a region from which the electron is excluded. They chose not to mention that curious phenomenon in the abstract of their paper, although they did explicitly say elsewhere that it was “curious.”None of those earlier authors went on to conclude that such a phenomenon implies that the vector potential has to be seen as a real physical field in quantum mechanics. Only Aharonov and Bohm did that.REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<1. M. Peshkin, I. Talmi, L. J. Tassie, Ann. Phys. 12, 426 (1961). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI2. W. Ehrenberg, R. E. Siday, Proc. Phys. Soc. B 62, 8 (1949). Google ScholarCrossref3. Y. Aharonov, D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 115, 485 (1959). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI4. C. N. Yang, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in the Light of New Technology, Tokyo, 1983, S. Kamefuchi et al. , eds., Physical Society of Japan, Tokyo (1984), p. 5. Google ScholarSee also T. T. Wu, C. N. Yang, Phys. Rev. D 12, 3845 (1975). Google ScholarCrossref, ISI5. P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. R. Soc. London A 133, 60 (1931) Google ScholarCrossref F. London, Nature 140, 793 (1937). , Google ScholarCrossref© 2010 American Institute of Physics.
The AB (Aharonov-Bohm) effect is a pivotal quantum mechanical phenomenon that illustrates the fundamental role of the electromagnetic vector potential A in determining the phase of a charged particle's wave function, even in regions where the magnetic field B is zero.This effect demonstrates that quantum particles are influenced not only by the fields directly present but also by the potentials associated with those fields.In the AB effect, an electron beam is split into two paths, with one path encircling a solenoid and the other bypassing it.Despite the absence of a magnetic field in the regions traversed by the beams, the vector potential A associated with the magnetic flux  through the solenoid induces a phase shift in the electron's wave function.This phase shift, quantified by qc     , manifests as a change in the interference pattern observed in the detection screen.The phenomenon underscores the principle of gauge invariance in QED (quantum electrodynamics), where physical observables remain invariant under local gauge transformations of the vector and scalar potentials.This reinforces the notion that the vector potential A has a profound impact on quantum systems, beyond its classical role.This article outlines the AB effect, including its theoretical framework, experimental observations, and implications.The focus on the role of the vector potential in quantum mechanics provides a comprehensive understanding of this important phenomenon.
We compare different ways to the Aharonov–Bohm (A–B) phase for an electrically charged point-like particle in an electromagnetic field and disclose three mathematically equivalent representations for the A–B phase, which explicitly demonstrate its Lorentz invariance and gauge invariance. Based on these results, we obtain a linear dependence of the wave vector of a moving charged particle on the vector composition of mechanical and electromagnetic momenta, which sheds new light on the physical origin of the A–B effect.
In the context of the Aharonov-Bohm effect, it is well-known that the local action of the vector potential or the non-local action of the magnetic field are properties attributable to quantum physics, which can explain the observed Aharonov-Bohm phase. Here we point out that, surprisingly, these properties are also attributable to classical physics and that this result follows from examining the electromagnetic angular momentum of a static electric charge outside an infinitely-long solenoid of finite radius carrying a uniform magnetic flux. This angular momentum may be expressed in three equivalent forms. The first form shows that there is an electromagnetic angular momentum even in regions for which the magnetic field vanishes but the potential does not, which stresses the physical nature of the vector potential in classical physics. The second form shows that there is an electromagnetic angular momentum produced by the non-local action of the magnetic field. The third form shows that the Aharonov-Bohm phase is proportional to the magnitude of the electromagnetic angular momentum, which sheds light on the physical meaning of this phase.