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Relativistic Electron Vortices

Stephen M. Barnett
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 114802 – Published 13 March 2017
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Abstract

The desire to push recent experiments on electron vortices to higher energies leads to some theoretical difficulties. In particular the simple and very successful picture of phase vortices of vortex charge associated with units of orbital angular momentum per electron is challenged by the facts that (i) the spin and orbital angular momentum are not separately conserved for a Dirac electron, which suggests that the existence of a spin-orbit coupling will complicate matters, and (ii) that the velocity of a Dirac electron is not simply the gradient of a phase as it is in the Schrödinger theory suggesting that, perhaps, electron vortices might not exist at a fundamental level. We resolve these difficulties by showing that electron vortices do indeed exist in the relativistic theory and show that the charge of such a vortex is simply related to a conserved orbital part of the total angular momentum, closely related to the familiar situation for the orbital angular momentum of a photon.

  • Received 25 November 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.114802

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

General PhysicsParticles & FieldsPlasma PhysicsAtomic, Molecular & Optical

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A New Twist on Relativistic Electron Vortices

Published 13 March 2017

Two studies explore the properties of vortices formed by electrons that travel at relativistic speeds.

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Authors & Affiliations

Stephen M. Barnett

  • School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom

Comments & Replies

Comment on “Relativistic Electron Vortices”

Iwo Bialynicki-Birula and Zofia Bialynicka-Birula
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 029501 (2017)

Barnett Replies

Stephen M. Barnett
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 029502 (2017)

See Also

Relativistic Electron Wave Packets Carrying Angular Momentum

Iwo Bialynicki-Birula and Zofia Bialynicka-Birula
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 114801 (2017)

Article Text

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 11 — 17 March 2017

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