AC Stark effect or time-dependent Aharonov-Bohm effect for particle on a ring

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum effects of a time-varying vector potential on a particle on a ring, revealing phenomena akin to the ac Stark effect and generating observable quasi-energy sidebands.

Contribution

It introduces a novel time-dependent setup combining Aharonov-Bohm and ac Stark effects, analyzing the resulting quasi-energy spectrum.

Findings

Observation of quasi-energy sidebands via spectroscopy

Comparison with standard ac Stark effect

Identification of a new time-dependent quantum phenomenon

Abstract

We study the effect of a time-varying solenoidal vector potential for a quantum particle confined to a ring. The setup appears to be a time-varying version of the Aharonov-Bohm effect, but since the particle moves in the presence of fields, it is not strictly an Aharonov-Bohm effect. The results are similar to the ac Stark effect, but with a time-varying electric field coming from the vector potential, rather than the scalar potential. We compare and contrast the present effect with the standard ac Stark effect. The signature of this setup is the generation of quasi-energy sidebands which are observable via spectroscopy.