Abstract

In the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect, a superposed charge acquires a detectable phase by enclosing an infinite solenoid, in a region where the solenoid’s electric and magnetic fields are zero. Its generation seems therefore explainable only by the local action of gauge-dependent potentials, not of gauge-independent fields. This was recently challenged by Vaidman, who explained the phase by the solenoid’s current interacting with the electron’s field (at the solenoid). Still, his model has a residual nonlocality: it does not explain how the phase, generated at the solenoid, is detectable on the charge. I will explain how to solve this nonlocality by explicitly quantizing the field. In this model, the AB phase is mediated locally by the entanglement between the charge and the photons, like all electromagnetic phases. I will discuss a realistic experiment to measure this phase difference locally, by partial quantum state tomography on the charge, without closing the interference loop.

References

1) https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.040401

2) https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03440

Zoom Link

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