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Updated: Oct 15, 2025

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
A mechanical analog of Bohr's atom based on de Broglie's double-solution approach
1Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Institut Neel, F-38000 Grenoble, France.
Abstract:
Motivated by recent developments of hydrodynamical quantum mechanical analogs [J. W. M. Bush, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 47, 269-292 (2015)], we provide a relativistic model for a classical particle coupled to a scalar wave field through a holonomic constraint. In the presence of an external Coulomb field, we define a regime where the particle is guided by the wave in a way similar to the old de Broglie phase-wave proposal. Moreover, this dualistic mechanical analog of the quantum theory is reminiscent of the double-solution approach suggested by de Broglie in 1927 and is able to reproduce the Bohr-Sommerfeld semiclassical quantization formula for an electron moving in an atom.
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