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arXiv:hep-th/9312131 · Physical Review Letters

Aharonov-Bohm and Berry Phases for a Quantum Cloud of Charge

Yakir Aharonov, Sidney Coleman, Alfred S. Goldhaber, SHMUEL NUSSINOV, Sandu Popescu, Benni Reznik, Daniel Rohrlich, Lev Vaidman A

Published Aug 15, 1994• 43 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the phase accumulated by a charged particle in an extended quantum state as it encircles one or more magnetic fluxons, each carrying half a flux unit. A simple, essentially topological analysis reveals an interplay between the Aharonov-Bohm phase and Berry's phase.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.73.918

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The Aharonov-Bohm effect is a physical phenomenon in which the quantum state of a charged particle acquires a phase shift that is directly proportional to the magnetic flux, ΦΦΦ, due to a (classical) magnetic field, B{\mathbf B}B, which is confined in a spatial region from which the magnetic field cannot escape. Even though the charged particle is not allowed to interact with the magnetic field, it accumulates a phase shift that affects the interference pattern produced. Not surprisingly, this apparent nonlocality is puzzling and counter intuitive. In this work, we provide an explanation that explains the physics underlying this apparent nonlocality. We find that the role of the confined magnetic field is to impart a puncture in the configuration space, R2\mathbb{R}^2R2, of the charge. Therefore, the quantum state corresponding to the charged quantum particle acquires the phase shift due to its response to the modified topology of the configuration space, R2−{0}\mathbb{R}^2-\{0\}R2−{0}, corresponding to the charge.
There are three topological phases related to electromagnetic interactions in quantum mechanics: 1. The Aharonov Bohm phase acquired when a charged particle encircles a magnetic field but travels through a field free region. 2. The Aharonov Casher phase acquired when a magnetic dipole encircles electric charges but travels through a charge free region. 3. The He McKellar Wilkens phase acquired when an electric dipole encircles magnetic charges but travels through a charge free region. We review the conditions under which these phases are indeed topological and their experimental realisation. Because the He McKellar Wilkens phase has been recently observed we pay particular attention to how the basic concept of "an electric dipole encircles magnetic charges" was realised experimentally, and discuss possible future experimental realisations.
The authors consider a charged particle confined to a ring encircling a magnetic flux. Supposing that the particle is trapped by a delta-function potential located on the ring, they examine the flux dependence of the energy and the wavefunction of the bound state. This offers a simple explicit model for the Aharonov-Bohm effect on a system localized, but not completely confined, to a simply connected region off a magnetic flux. The result is used to show that Berry's phase for the bound state, when the delta-function potential is slowly transported around the ring, consists not only of the Aharonov-Bohm phase proportional to the flux, but also of an extra term which reflects the incomplete localization of the state; in the limit of strong binding the extra term depends sinusoidally on the flux.
In two-dimensional space, the topological coupling arising between charged particles with attached magnetic fluxes, via the Aharonov–Bohm effect, causes distinguishable particles to effectively acquire quantum statistics: a nontrivial quantum phase is generated when a particle of one species encircles one of a different species. We discuss a number of exact and numerical results concerning distinguishable particles with fractional statistics. Just like for anyons, the spectrum of such particles confined to the lowest Landau level of a strong magnetic field can be found exactly. Then a system of particles in the presence of static magnetic fluxes (equivalent to particles with infinite mass) is considered, and the low-lying states of one particle in the presence of two fluxes and two particles in the presence of one flux are analyzed.