Local description of the Aharonov-Bohm effect with a quantum electromagnetic field

TL;DR

This paper refines the quantum electrodynamics description of the Aharonov-Bohm effect, emphasizing local interactions and gauge independence, and extends the analysis to electric cases, proposing an experiment to test phase locality.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge-independent QED formalism for the Aharonov-Bohm effect, allowing analysis of arbitrary geometries and including longitudinal photons, and extends the effect to electric scenarios.

Findings

Improved gauge-independent QED description of the Aharonov-Bohm effect.

Extension of the effect to electric cases.

Proposal for an experiment testing phase locality.

Abstract

In the seminal works from Santos and Gozalo [Europhys. Lett. $\mathbf{45}$, 418 (1999)] and Marletto and Vedral [Phys. Rev. Lett. $\mathbf{125}$, 040401 (2020)], it is shown how the Aharonov-Bohm effect can be described as the result of an exchange of virtual photons between the solenoid and the quantum charged particle along its propagation through the interferometer, where both the particle and the solenoid interact locally with the quantum electromagnetic field. This interaction results in a local and gauge-independent phase generation for the particle propagation in each path of the interferometer. Here we improve the cited treatments by using the quantum electrodynamics formalism in the Lorentz gauge, with a manifestly gauge-independent Hamiltonian for the interaction and the presence of virtual longitudinal photons. Only with this more complete and gauge-independent treatment it is possible to justify the acquired phases for interferometers with arbitrary geometries, and this is an advantage of our treatment. We also extend the results to the electric version of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Finally, we propose an experiment that could test the locality of the Aharonov-Bohm phase generation.