Aharonov–Bohm effect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Aharonov-Bohm effect)
The Aharonov–Bohm effect, sometimes called the Ehrenberg–
Siday–Aharonov–Bohm effect, is a quantum
mechanical phenomenon by which a charged particle is affected by
electromagnetic fields in regions from which the particle is
excluded. Werner Ehrenberg and R.E. Siday first predicted the effect
in 1949,[1] and similar effects were later rediscovered
byAharonov and Bohm in 1959.[2] (After publication of the 1959
paper, Bohm was informed of Ehrenberg and Siday's work, which
was acknowledged and credited[3] in Bohm and Aharanov's
subsequent 1961 paper.[4]) Such effects are predicted to arise from
both magnetic fields and electric fields, but the magnetic version
has been easier to observe. In general, the profound consequence
of Aharonov–Bohm effects is that knowledge of the classical
electromagnetic field acting locally on a particle is not sufficient to
predict its quantum-mechanical behavior.

The most commonly described case, sometimes called

the Aharonov–Bohm solenoid effect, is when the wave function
of a charged particle passing around a long solenoid experiences
a phase shift as a result of the enclosed magnetic field, despite the
magnetic field being zero in the region through which the particle
passes. This phase shift has been observed experimentally by its
effect on interference fringes. (There are also magnetic Aharonov–
Bohm effects on bound energies and scattering cross sections, but
these cases have not been experimentally tested.) An electric
Aharonov–Bohm phenomenon was also predicted, in which a
charged particle is affected by regions with different electrical
potentials but zero electric field, and this has also seen
experimental confirmation. A separate "molecular" Aharonov–Bohm
effect was proposed for nuclear motion in multiply-connected
regions, but this has been argued to be essentially different,
depending only on local quantities along the nuclear path (Sjöqvist,
2002[5]). A general review can be found in Peshkin and Tonomura
(1989).[6]

Contents
 [hide]

• 1 Magnetic Aharonov–Bohm effect

• 2 Electric Aharonov–Bohm effect
• 3 Aharonov–Bohm nano rings
• 4 Mathematical interpretation
• 5 References and external links

• 6 See also
[edit]Magnetic Aharonov–Bohm effect

The magnetic Aharonov–Bohm effect can be seen as a result of the

requirement that quantum physics be invariant with respect to
the gauge choice for the vector potential A. This implies that a
particle with electric charge q travelling along some path P in a
region with zero magnetic field ( ) must acquire a
phase , given in SI units by

with a phase difference between any two paths with the

same endpoints therefore determined by the magnetic flux Φ
through the area between the paths (via Stokes'
theorem and ), and given by:

Schematic of double-slit experiment in which Aharonov–

Bohm effect can be observed: electrons pass through two
slits, interfering at an observation screen, with the
interference pattern shifted when a magnetic field B is
turned on in the cylindrical solenoid.
This phase difference can be observed by placing
a solenoid between the slits of a double-slit experiment (or
equivalent). An ideal solenoid encloses a magnetic field B,
but does not produce any magnetic field outside of its
cylinder, and thus the charged particle (e.g. an electron)
passing outside experiences no classical effect. However,
there is a (curl-free) vector potential outside the solenoid
with an enclosed flux, and so the relative phase of particles
passing through one slit or the other is altered by whether
the solenoid current is turned on or off. This corresponds to
an observable shift of the interference fringes on the
observation plane.

The same phase effect is responsible for the quantized-

flux requirement in superconducting loops. This quantization
is because the superconducting wave function must be
single valued: its phase difference Δφ around a closed loop
must be an integer multiple of 2π (with the charge q=2e for
the electron Cooper pairs), and thus the flux Φ must be a
multiple of h/2e. The superconducting flux quantum was
actually predicted prior to Aharonov and Bohm, by London
(1948)[7] using a phenomenological model.

The magnetic Aharonov–Bohm effect is also closely related

to Dirac's argument that the existence of a magnetic
monopole necessarily implies that both electric and
magnetic charges are quantized. A magnetic monopole
implies a mathematical singularity in the vector potential,
which can be expressed as an infinitely long Dirac string of
infinitesimal diameter that contains the equivalent of all of
the 4πg flux from a monopole "charge" g. Thus, assuming
the absence of an infinite-range scattering effect by this
arbitrary choice of singularity, the requirement of single-
valued wave functions (as above) necessitates charge-
quantization: must be an integer (in cgs units) for
any electric charge q and magnetic charge g.

The magnetic Aharonov–Bohm effect was experimentally

confirmed by Osakabe et al. (1986),[8] following much earlier
work summarized in Olariu and Popèscu (1984).[9] Its scope
and application continues to expand. Webb et al. (1985)
[10]
demonstrated Aharonov–Bohm oscillations in ordinary,
non-superconducting metallic rings; for a discussion, see
Schwarzschild (1986)[11] and Imry & Webb (1989).
[12]
Bachtold et al. (1999)[13] detected the effect in carbon
nanotubes; for a discussion, see Kong et al. (2004).[14]
[edit]Electric Aharonov–Bohm effect

Just as the phase of the wave function depends upon the

magnetic vector potential, it also depends upon the scalar
electric potential. By constructing a situation in which the
electrostatic potential varies for two paths of a particle,
through regions of zero electric field, an observable
Aharonov–Bohm interference phenomenon from the phase
shift has been predicted; again, the absence of an electric
field means that, classically, there would be no effect.

From the Schrödinger equation, the phase of an

eigenfunction with energy E goes as . The
energy, however, will depend upon the electrostatic
potential V for a particle with charge q. In particular, for a
region with constant potential V (zero field), the electric
potential energy qV is simply added to E, resulting in a
phase shift:

where t is the time spent in the potential.

The initial theoretical proposal for this effect suggested

an experiment where charges pass through conducting
cylinders along two paths, which shield the particles
from external electric fields in the regions where they
travel, but still allow a varying potential to be applied by
charging the cylinders. This proved difficult to realize,
however. Instead, a different experiment was proposed
involving a ring geometry interrupted by tunnel barriers,
with a bias voltage V relating the potentials of the two
halves of the ring. This situation results in an Aharonov–
Bohm phase shift as above, and was observed
experimentally in 1998.[15]
[edit]Aharonov–Bohm nano rings

Nano rings were created by accident[16] during the

manufacture of quantum dots 10-100nm in size. The
process sometimes cause the material to splash when
making deposits onto a surface leaving a defective dot
that becomes a doughnut-shaped ring, an Aharonov–
Bohm nano ring. These nano rings have been a source
of study and are the right size for enclosing anexciton.
The right size does not allow them to hold an exciton for
long. But when a combination of magnetic and electric
fields is applied, the electric field can tuned to freeze an
exciton in place or let it collapse and re-emit a photon at
a later time. This is the pairing of an electron that has
been kicked into a higher state by a photon, with a hole
it leaves within the shell around the nucleus. When an
electron’s high energy state decays again, it is drawn
back to the hole it is linked to and a photon is once
again emitted. By holding an exciton in place one could
delay the reemitting of a photon and effectively slow or
even "freeze" light. While varying exotic states of matter
have been used to slow the progress of light,
the University of Warwickreported in March of 2009 that
it was successful for the first time to completely freeze
light by releasing individual photons at will[16] Application
of these rings used as light capacitors or buffers
includes photonic computing and communications
technology. Analysis and measurement of geometric
phases in mesoscopic rings is ongoing.[17][18][19]
[edit]Mathematical interpretation

In the terms of modern differential geometry, the

Aharonov–Bohm effect can be understood to be
the monodromy of a flat complex line bundle. The U(1)-
connection on this line bundle is given by
the electromagnetic four-potential A as
where d means partial derivation in the Minkowski
space . The curvature form of the
connection, , is the electromagnetic field
strength, where is the 1-form corresponding to the
four-potential. The holonomy of the connection,
around a closed loop γ is, as a consequence of Stokes'
theorem, determined by the magnetic flux through a
surface bounded by the loop. This description is general
and works inside as well as outside the conductor.
Outside of the conducting tube, which is for example a
longitudinally magnetized infinite metallic thread, the
field strength is ; in other words outside the
thread the connection is flat, and the holonomy of a loop
contained in the field-free region depends only on
the winding number around the tube and is, by
definition, the monodromy of the flat connection.

In any simply connected region outside of the tube we

can find a gauge transformation (acting on wave
functions and connections) that gauges away the vector
potential. However, if the monodromy is non trivial,
there is no such gauge transformation for the whole
outside region. If we want to ignore the physics inside
the conductor and only describe the physics in the
outside region, it becomes natural to mathematically
describe the quantum electron by a section in a
complex line bundle with an "external" connection
rather than an external EM field (by incorporating
local gauge transformations we have already
acknowledged that quantum mechanics defines the
notion of a (locally) flat wavefunction (zero momentum
density) but not that of unit wavefunction). The
Schrödinger equation readily generalizes to this
situation. In fact for the Aharonov–Bohm effect we can
work in two simply connected regions with cuts that
pass from the tube towards or away from the detection
screen. In each of these regions we have to solve the
ordinary free Schrödinger equations but in passing from
one region to the other, in only one of the two
connected components of the intersection (effectively in
only one of the slits) we pick up a monodromy factor eiα,
which results in a shift in the interference pattern.