Electrons in Magnetic Mirror Geometry

TL;DR

This paper extends Landau's theory to include bouncing electrons in inhomogeneous magnetic fields, revealing quantization effects and shifts in energy levels without affecting diamagnetism.

Contribution

It introduces a perturbation approach to account for bouncing motion, showing how it modifies Landau levels and degeneracy in magnetic mirror geometry.

Findings

Bouncing motion is quantized in magnetic mirror fields.

Bouncing causes a weak shift in Landau energy levels.

Bouncing does not contribute to diamagnetism.

Abstract

Landau's theory of electron motion in stationary magnetic fields is extended to the inclusion of bouncing along the field between mirror points in an inhomogeneous field. The problem can be treated perturbation theoretically. As expected, bouncing is quantized, causes a weak shift in Landau levels, reduces parallel degeneracy, but does not contribute to diamagnetism.