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American Journal of Physics

Motion of a Wave Packet Constructed from Landau Gauge Solutions

D. M. Thomson

Published Nov 1, 1972• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The eigensolutions of the Schrödinger equation for the motion of a charged particle in a uniform magnetic field depend on the choice of electromagnetic gauge. In the Landau gauge it is hard to discern a relationship between the eigensolutions and the circular or helical orbits of classical theory. In this paper a wave packet is constructed from the Landau gauge eigensolutions which simulates the classical motion in the plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. Some properties of the wave packet are discussed.

DOI
10.1119/1.1987009

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Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks•Dec 17, 2005•1 citation
The eigensolutions of the Schrödinger equation for the motion of a charged particle in a uniform magnetic field depend on the choice of electromagnetic gauge. In the Landau gauge it is hard to discern a relationship between the eigensolutions and the circular or helical orbits of classical theory. In this paper a wave packet is constructed from the Landau gauge eigensolutions which simulates the classical motion in the plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. Some properties of the wave packet are discussed.
Solutions of the Dirac wave equation representing a free electron moving in a uniform magnetic field are obtained. The functions are similar to those obtained by Landau and by Uhlenbeck and Young as solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation. A wave packet is constructed representing a beam of electrons passing through a slit. The results agree with the classical predictions to terms of the order of the de Broglie wave-length of the electron divided by the radius of curvature of its classical path. For experimental cases this ratio is of the order ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$ to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}10}$. Hence it is concluded that the difference between magnetic deflection measurements of em\frac{e}{m}me​ and other determinations cannot be explained as a quantum effect.
It has been shown that the irreversible dynamics of a system in a dissipative environment can be described by an effective one-particle Hamiltonian (in the classical case) or an effective one-particle Schrödinger equation (in the quantum mechanical case) without taking into account the environmental degrees of freedom explicitly. In the quantum mechanical case, the description can be achieved either by a nonlinear modification of the Schrödinger equation or an explicitly time-dependent Hamiltonian operator — where both forms are connected via a non-unitary transformation, corresponding to a non-canonical transformation on the classical level. Taking into account an external magnetic field, in both formalisms, an additional unphysical gauge-dependent term occurs in the equations of motion. This shortcoming can be eliminated if the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian that provide Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics undergo, in the dissipative case, the same kind of transformation as the mechanical degrees of freedom of the system. As a result, a consistent description in terms of exact analytical wave packet-solutions for the dissipative motion in a magnetic field can be obtained that will be discussed in detail.