Energy expectation values of a particle in nonstationary fields

Alexander J. Silenko
Phys. Rev. A 91, 012111 – Published 20 January 2015

Abstract

We show that the origin of the nonequivalence of Hamiltonians in different representations is a change of the form of the time-derivative operator at a time-dependent unitary transformation. This nonequivalence does not lead to an ambiguity of the energy expectation values of a particle in nonstationary fields but assigns the basic representation. It has been explicitly or implicitly supposed in previous investigations that this representation is the Dirac one. We prove the alternative assertion about the basic role of the Foldy-Wouthuysen representation. We also derive the general equation for the energy expectation values in the Dirac representation. As an example, we consider a spin-1/2 particle with anomalous magnetic and electric dipole moments in strong time-dependent electromagnetic fields. We apply the obtained results to a spin-1/2 particle in a plane monochromatic electromagnetic wave and give an example of the exact Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation in the nonstationary case.

  • Received 31 July 2014
  • Revised 12 December 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.012111

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Alexander J. Silenko*

  • Research Institute for Nuclear Problems, Belarusian State University, Minsk 220030, Belarus, and Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna 141980, Russia

  • *alsilenko@mail.ru

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Vol. 91, Iss. 1 — January 2015

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