For the magnetic flux spectrum of a quantum ring, the periodic boundary condition permits the normalized plane waves , with . Their energy eigenvalues are
Shifting by an integer relabels , so the ordered energy levels have period one in , or in . For , the lowest two are
extended periodically. The lowest branches cross at every half-integer , with energy . At integer , the first excited energy level has multiplicity two. The corresponding magnetic flux period is the electron magnetic flux quantum .
Figure 1.
Two lowest ring energies from free motion to a deep cosine potential
. Original calculations in a plane wave basis. From left to right: the free spectrum, a weak cosine potential with , and a deep potential with . The middle panel shows an avoided crossing at half-integer ; the deep-potential branches are almost horizontal and well separated. The dashed levels in the final panel are the parabolic approximation, whose leading anharmonic errors are visible at this finite depth. Details.