Jens Bolte and Rainer Glaser 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 6359 doi:10.1088/0305-4470/37/24/012
Zitterbewegung and semiclassical observables for the Dirac equation
Jens Bolte and Rainer Glaser
Show affiliationsIn a semiclassical context we investigate the Zitterbewegung of relativistic particles with spin 1/2 moving in external fields. It is shown that the analogue of Zitterbewegung for general observables can be removed to arbitrary order in 
by projecting to dynamically almost invariant subspaces of the quantum mechanical Hilbert space which are associated with particles and anti-particles. This not only allows us to identify observables with a semiclassical meaning, but also to recover combined classical dynamics for the translational and spin degrees of freedom. Finally, we discuss properties of eigenspinors of a Dirac–Hamiltonian when these are projected to the almost invariant subspaces, including the phenomenon of quantum ergodicity.
- PACS
- MSC
-
81Q20 Semiclassical techniques including WKB and Maslov methods
- Subjects
- Dates
-
Issue 24 (18 June 2004)
Received 20 February 2004
Published 2 June 2004
-
Zitterbewegung and semiclassical observables for the Dirac equation
Jens Bolte and Rainer Glaser 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 6359
-
Microstructure and electrical properties of quenched AgPb18Sb1−xTe20 thermoelectric materials
T J Zhu et al 2007 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40 3537
-
Continuum equations for dielectric response to macro-molecular assemblies at the nano scale
Ridgway Scott et al 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 9791
-
The standard model and its generalizations in the Epstein-Glaser approach to renormalization theory: II. The fermion sector and the axial anomaly
D R Grigore 2001 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34 5429
-
Low frequency noise in Co/Al2O3
δ(Fe)
/Ni80Fe20 magnetic tunnel junctions
R Guerrero et al 2002 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 35 1761
-
Hidden Markov modelling of spike propagation from interictal MEG data
A Ossadtchi et al 2005 Phys. Med. Biol. 50 3447
-
On two-dimensional fractional Brownian motion and fractional Brownian random field
Hong Qian et al 1998 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 31 L527
-
Coherent states for the q-deformed quantum mechanics on a circle
K Kowalski and J Rembieliński 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 11447
-
Space missions to detect the cosmic gravitational-wave background
Neil J Cornish and Shane L Larson 2001 Class. Quantum Grav. 18 3473
-
Shake-off on inner-shell resonances of Ar, Kr and Xe
P A Heimann et al 1987 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Phys. 20 5005
Related review articles
What's this?- Integrable structure of box–ball systems: crystal, Bethe ansatz, ultradiscretization and tropical geometry
- Trajectory attractors of equations of mathematical physics
- Spectral problems in open quantum chaos