Wave-packet view of the Dirac electron

Chuu, Chih-Piao; Chang, Ming-Che; Niu, Qian

Wave-packet view of the Dirac electron

Authors

Chuu, Chih-Piao

Chang, Ming-Che

Niu, Qian

Description

By viewing the electron as a wavepacket in the positive energy spectrum of the Dirac equation, we are able to achieve a much clearer understanding of its behavior under weak electromagnetic fields. The intrinsic spin magnetic moment is found to be established from the self-rotation of the wavepacket. A non-canonical structure is also exhibited in the equations of motion due to non- Abelian geometric phases of the Dirac spinors. The wavepacket energy can be expressed simply in terms of the kinetic, electrostatic, and Zeeman terms only. This can be transformed into an effective quantum Hamiltonian by a novel scheme, and reproduces the Pauli Hamiltonian with all-order relativistic corrections.
5 pages, 1 figure