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Fortschritte der Physik

Quantum carpets of a slightly relativistic particle

Irene Marzoli, A. E. Kaplan, Farhan Saif, W. P. Schleich

Published May 19, 2008• 15 citations

Abstract

Abstract We analyze the structures emerging in the spacetime representation of the probability density woven by a slightly relativistic particle caught in a one‐dimensional box. In particular, we evaluate the relativistic effects on the revival time and the specific changes produced in the intermode traces, which quantum carpets consist of. Moreover, we present a detailed mathematical analysis of such quantum carpets pursuing the approach of a kernel. Here we represent the probability distribution as a superposition of interfering Airy function‐type structures along straight world lines. We also show that this phenomenon can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude in semiconductors with narrow band‐gap (e.g. as in InSb) and small effective mass of the electron, whereby due to the strong nonparabolicity of the semiconductor conduction band, the electron energy vs momentum dispersion relation behaves in a pseudo‐relativistic way.

DOI: 10.1002/prop.200810535

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Abstract We analyze the structures emerging in the spacetime representation of the probability density woven by a slightly relativistic particle caught in a one‐dimensional box. In particular, we evaluate the relativistic effects on the revival time and the specific changes produced in the intermode traces, which quantum carpets consist of. Moreover, we present a detailed mathematical analysis of such quantum carpets pursuing the approach of a kernel. Here we represent the probability distribution as a superposition of interfering Airy function‐type structures along straight world lines. We also show that this phenomenon can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude in semiconductors with narrow band‐gap (e.g. as in InSb) and small effective mass of the electron, whereby due to the strong nonparabolicity of the semiconductor conduction band, the electron energy vs momentum dispersion relation behaves in a pseudo‐relativistic way.

Present work is devoted to studying the spatio-temporal of the Dirac and the Klein Gordon (KG) particles confined in a one-dimensional box. We discuss the quantum carpets and revivals time for each particle. Moreover, we explain that the relativistic phenomena not only decrease the density of the corresponding carpets but also affect the revivals time of each particle within a box. Further, we impose different limiting conditions on the obtained Dirac energy solution and explain the wellknown slight-relativistic and non-relativistic quantum carpets, respectively. In addition, we extend our study to explain the quantum carpets of the KG particle at different energy states and compare its revivals time with the Dirac particle.

We investigate wavepacket dynamics for a relativistic particle in a box evolving according to the relativistic Schrödinger (also known as the Salpeter) equation. We derive the solutions for an infinite well -- which contrary to the standard relativistic wave equations (such as the Klein-Gordon or Dirac equations) -- are well defined, and use these solutions to construct wavepackets. We obtain expressions for the wavepacket revival times and explore the corresponding quantum carpets (the space-time probability density plots) for different dynamical regimes. We further analyze level spacing statistics as the dynamics goes from the non-relativistic regime to the ultra-relativistic limit.

Generic channel and ridge structures are known to appear in the time-dependent position probability distribution of a one-dimensional quantum particle confined to a box. These structures are shown to have a detailed quantitative explanation in terms of a travelling-wave decomposition of the probability density, wherein each contributing term corresponds simultaneously to (i) a real wave propagating at a quantized velocity and (ii) to the time-averaged structure of the position distribution along a quantized direction in spacetime. The approach leads to new predictions of channel locations, widths and depths, and is able to provide more structural details than earlier approaches based on partial interference and Wigner functions. Results are also applicable to light diffracted by a periodic grating, and to the quantum rigid rotator.

Abstract Position-dependent-mass systems are of great importance in many physical situations, such as the transport of charge carriers in semiconductors with non-uniform composition and in the theory of many-body interactions in condensed matter. Here we investigate, numerically and analytically, the phenomenon of fractional revivals in such systems, which is a generic characteristic manifested by the wave-packet evolution in bounded Hamiltonian systems. Identifying the fractional revivals using specific probes is an important task in the theory of quantum measurement and sensing. We numerically simulate the temporal evolution of probability density and information entropy density, which manifest self-similarly recurring interference patterns, namely, quantum carpets. Our numerical results show that the quantum carpets not only serve as an effective probe for recognizing the fractional revivals of various order but they efficiently describe the effect of spatially-varying mass on the structure of fractional revivals, which is manifested as a symmetry breaking in their designs.