The long-term cyclotron dynamics of relativistic wave packets: spontaneous collapse and revival

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the long-term behavior of relativistic electron wave packets in magnetic fields, revealing collapse, revival, and Zitterbewegung phenomena, with implications for astrophysics and ion trap experiments.

Contribution

It provides an analytical study of wave packet collapse, revival, and Zitterbewegung in relativistic quantum dynamics, including effects of energy band mixing.

Findings

Wave packets lose localization due to dephasing over time.

Half-revival reshaping occurs at half the revival time.

Complex splitting and Zitterbewegung occur in mixed energy band packets.

Abstract

In this work we study the effects of collapse and revival as well as {\it Zitterbewegung} (ZB) phenomenon, for the relativistic electron wave packets, which are a superposition of the states with quantum numbers sharply peaked around some level $n_0$ of the order of few tens. The probability densities as well as average velocities of the packet center and the average spin components were calculated analytically and visualized. Our computations demonstrate that due to dephasing of the states for times larger than the cyclotron period the initial wave packet (which includes the states with the positive energy only) loses the spatial localization so that the evolution can no longer be described classically. However, at the half-revival time $t=T_R/2$ its reshaping takes place firstly. The behavior of the wave packet containing the states of both energy bands (with $E_n>0$ and $E_n<0$) is more complicated. At short times of a few classical periods such packet splits into two parts which rotate with cyclotron frequency in the opposite directions and meet each other every one-half of the cyclotron period. At these moments their wave functions have significant overlap that leads to ZB. At the time of fractional revival each of two sub-packets is decomposed into few packets-fractions. However, at $t=T_R$ each of the two sub-packets (with positive or negative energy) restores at various points of the cyclotron orbit, that makes it impossible reshaping of initial wave packet entirely unlike the wave packet which consists of states with energies $E_n>0$ only. Obtained results can be useful for the description of electromagnetic radiation and absorption in relativistic plasma on astrophysics objects, where super high magnetic field has the value of the order $10^8-10^9$T, as well as for interpretation of experiments with trapped ions.