Revisiting the controversy over the time-dependent Aharonov-Bohm effect

• Main Author: Wakamatsu, Masashi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25.06.2024
• Subjects: Physics - High Energy Physics - Phenomenology; Physics - Nuclear Theory; Physics - Physics Education; Physics - Quantum Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.18046

The time-dependent Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect considers the situation in which the magnetic flux inside the solenoid changes time-dependently. Different from the standard AB-effect, the problem is unexpectedly subtle and not easy to solve without any doubt, which is the reason why it is still in a state of unsettlement even theoretically. The difficulty originates from the fact that its theoretical analysis requires line-integral along a path in the 4-dimensional Minkowski space. The central controversy concerns the success or failure of the claim by Singleton and collaborators, which states that the time-dependent part of the AB-phase shift due to the magnetic vector potential is precisely cancelled by the effect of induced electric field generated by the time-variation of the magnetic flux. In this paper, we try to demonstrate that their cancellation argument would not be justified by going back to the basic quantum mechanical analysis of the charged particle motion under the presence of external electromagnetic potential. At the end, we conclude that the failure of the cancellation argument is due to unjustified application of the 4-dimensional Stokes theorem to the problem of time-dependent AB-effect.