Electron vortex beams in a magnetic field: A new twist on Landau levels and Aharonov-Bohm states

TL;DR

This paper explores how electron vortex beams behave in magnetic fields, revealing new phase effects and superposition behaviors that could be observed with electron microscopy.

Contribution

It introduces a unified phase framework combining Zeeman, Landau, and Gouy phases to explain electron vortex beam structures and dynamics in magnetic fields.

Findings

Landau states are Laguerre-Gaussian beams with field-dependent phases.

Superpositions can produce rotating or stationary vortex images.

Centroids follow classical cyclotron trajectories, confirming Ehrenfest theorem.

Abstract

We examine the propagation of the recently-discovered electron vortex beams in a longitudinal magnetic field. We consider both the Aharonov-Bohm configuration with a single flux line and the Landau case of a uniform magnetic field. While stationary Aharonov-Bohm modes represent Bessel beams with flux- and vortex-dependent probability distributions, stationary Landau states manifest themselves as non-diffracting Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Furthermore, the Landau-state beams possess field- and vortex-dependent phases: (i) the Zeeman phase from coupling the quantized angular momentum to the magnetic field and (ii) the Gouy phase, known from optical Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Remarkably, together these phases determine the structure of Landau energy levels. This unified Zeeman-Landau-Gouy phase manifests itself in a nontrivial evolution of images formed by various superpositions of modes. We demonstrate that, depending on the chosen superposition, the image can rotate in a magnetic field with either (i) Larmor, (ii) cyclotron (double-Larmor), or (iii) zero frequency. At the same time, its centroid always follows the classical cyclotron trajectory, in agreement with the Ehrenfest theorem. Remarkably, the non-rotating superpositions reproduce stable multi-vortex configurations that appear in rotating superfluids. Our results open up an avenue for the direct electron-microscopy observation of fundamental properties of free quantum electron states in magnetic fields.