Geometry-Enabled Radiation from Structured Paraxial Electrons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a geometric framework for calculating photon emission from structured paraxial electrons in magnetic fields, revealing a new radiation mechanism linked to wavefront curvature.

Contribution

It develops an exact state construction combining wavefront geometry with quantum transformations, uncovering a geometric contribution to radiation beyond traditional Landau-level mechanisms.

Findings

Wavefront curvature acts as an effective geometric field enabling radiation.

Structured electron states exhibit a new emission mechanism related to geometric evolution.

The approach generalizes Landau-level radiation to nonasymptotic, structured states.

Abstract

We present a microscopic calculation of spontaneous photon emission by twisted (paraxial) electrons propagating through inhomogeneous, axisymmetric magnetic fields. We construct exact electron states that incorporate transverse mode structure and wavefront curvature by combining the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation with a geometric framework based on Lewis-Ermakov invariants and metaplectic transformations. We show that the evolution of such structured states corresponds to an open path in the space of quadratic forms, giving rise to a geometric contribution to the emission amplitude that cannot be eliminated by gauge choice or adiabatic arguments. The inverse radius of curvature of the electron wavefront emerges as an effective geometric field that enables radiation even in regions where the external magnetic field vanishes locally. This mechanism generalizes Landau-level radiation to nonasymptotic, structured electron states and establishes a direct connection between noncyclic geometric evolution and photon emission.