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Physical Review A

Spin-orbit pendulum: Oscillations between spin and orbital angular momentum

Robert Arvieu, P. Rozmej

Published Nov 1, 1994• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The collapse and revival of spin is studied for a particle with a spin moving in a spherical harmonic oscillator potential with spin-orbit interaction. We have concentrated our study on the particular initial conditions that lead to the most transparent formulas and that can be treated analytically. A detailed comparison of the quantum evolution to the classical one is given.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.50.4376

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The motion of a particle with a spin in spherical harmonic oscillator potential with spin-orbit interaction is studied. We have focus our attention on spatial motion of wave packets, giving a description complementary to motion of spin discussed already in [1]. The particular initial conditions studied here lead to the most transparent formulas and can be treated analytically. A strong analogy with the Stern-Gerlach experiment is suggested

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The motion of a particle with a spin in spherical harmonic oscillator potential with spin-orbit interaction is studied. We have focus our attention on spatial motion of wave packets, giving a description complementary to motion of spin discussed already in [1]. The particular initial conditions studied here lead to the most transparent formulas and can be treated analytically. A strong analogy with the Stern-Gerlach experiment is suggested. [1] R.Arvieu and P.Rozmej, Phys.Rev.A50 (1994) 4376.

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The collapse and revival of spin is studied for a particle with a spin moving in a spherical harmonic oscillator potential with spin-orbit interaction. We have concentrated our study on the particular initial conditions that lead to the most transparent formulas and that can be treated analytically. A detailed comparison of the quantum evolution to the classical one is given.
The article discusses the properties of time evolution of wave packets in a few systems. Dynamics of wave packet motion for Rydberg atoms with the hierarchy of collapses and revivals is briefly reviewed. The main part of the paper focuses on the new mechanism of quantum reccurrences in wave packet dynamics. This mechanism can occur (in principle) in any physical system with strong enough spin-orbit interaction. We discuss here the SPIN_ORBIT PENDULUM effect that consists in different motions of subpackets possessing different spin fields and results in oscillations of a fraction of average angular momentum between spin and ordinary subspaces. The evolution of localized wave packet into toroidal objects and backwards (for other class of initial conditions) is also subject to discussion.
First, the experimental foundations for the existence of a new dynamical variable, the spin of particles, are presented. The Pauli equation is then derived in detail, two applications are given and the energy levels of a particle with spin in a constant magnetic field are studied. This is the analysis of Landau levels, which can be performed by using the known results on the spectrum of harmonic oscillators. In this chapter we also study in detail the addition of orbital angular momentum and spin, as well as the spin–orbit interaction with the resulting Thomas precession. Stern-Gerlach experiment and electron spin The hypothesis that the electron has an intrinsic magnetic moment and an angular momentum, in short a spin , was first suggested in Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit (1926). They noticed, even before the discovery of quantum mechanics, that a complete description of spectra was not possible unless a magnetic moment and a mechanical moment were ascribed to the electron, and hence the concept of an electron as a point charge was insufficient. First, let us therefore try to understand how a magnetic moment can be associated to an atomic system. For this purpose, consider for simplicity the Bohr model of an hydrogen atom, where the electron moves along a circular orbit and rotates with orbital angular momentum L .
The motion of circular wave packets for one electron in a central Coulomb field with a high atomic number Z is calculated. The wave packet is defined in terms of solutions of the Dirac equation in order to take into account all possible relevant effects, in particular the spin-orbit potential. A time scale is defined within which spin dynamics must be taken into account, mainly in atoms with high Z. Within this time scale there exists a mechanism of collapses and revivals of the spin, already shown by the authors for harmonic oscillator potential and called the spin-orbit pendulum. Though this effect does not have the exact periodicity of the simpler model, the wave packet spatial motion is nevertheless quite similar.
In this chapter, we develop the background needed to move our quantum mechanical formalism fully into three dimensions. We discuss angular momentum, which is the motional complement to spin angular momentum, that we developed earlier. There are some critical differences between orbital and spin angular momentum, and we need to carefully discuss how they relate and how they differ. Why is angular momentum so important? Because in problems where we have central forces (forces that depend only on the distance between two particles and act along the line connecting the two particles), the angular momentum is conserved. So, it becomes an integral part of how we solve the problem. The most important problem we have to solve, the hydrogen atom, is a central force problem; hence, we need this work before we can move forward to some really interesting physics that will come in Chap. 11 . We cover the angular momentum operators, eigenvalues, and eigenstates, their matrix representations, how to combine angular momentum, and spherical harmonics. We revisit the EPR experiment using our new formalism. We also discuss some unique representations of angular momentum by mapping to two-dimensional harmonic oscillators, as developed by Schwinger.