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Aharonov-Bohm Phase is Locally Generated Like All Other Quantum Phases.
Chiara Marletto1,2, Vlatko Vedral1,2
1Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom; Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543, Singapore; Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 2 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117542, Singapore.
Physical Review Letters
|August 16, 2020
Summary
The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect
Area of Science:
- Quantum mechanics
- Electromagnetism
- Quantum field theory
Background:
- The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect demonstrates quantum phase acquisition by charged particles influenced by magnetic fields, even in regions of zero field.
- Existing explanations for the AB effect face challenges regarding locality and the interaction mechanism between the solenoid and the charged particle.
Purpose of the Study:
- To resolve the nonlocality issue in the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
- To elucidate the local mechanism mediating the AB phase.
- To propose a method for experimentally verifying the local phase mediation.
Main Methods:
- Quantization of the electromagnetic field.
- Analysis of charge-photon entanglement.
- Theoretical prediction of gauge-invariant phase differences.
Main Results:
- The AB phase is shown to be locally mediated by quantum entanglement between the charged particle and photons.
- A gauge-invariant value for the phase difference is predicted at each point along the particle's path.
- A realistic experimental proposal is presented to measure this local phase difference.
Conclusions:
- The study resolves the nonlocality paradox in the Aharonov-Bohm effect by invoking local field quantization and entanglement.
- The findings establish a universal mechanism for electromagnetic phase mediation via charge-photon entanglement.
- The proposed experiment offers a direct method to probe the local nature of quantum phase phenomena.
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