For a localized quantum harmonic oscillator along , let the transverse magnetic vector potential be for , with zero potential before the switch. The Coulomb gauge form of minimal coupling gives . The creation operator matrix element means that only is reached at first order from the ground state. Its interaction picture amplitude is
In particular , so resonant finite-time expressions are nonsingular. The induced electric dipole moment is . It contains a driven component with the dynamic electric polarizability and free-frequency transients required by the initial conditions. The discontinuity in gives an impulsive electric field and an initial mechanical velocity even though the initial canonical momentum has zero mean.
The density
contains the term linear in the potential from minimal coupling, but omits . It has exact global phase symmetry, not exact arbitrary local phase symmetry. For a prescribed background its field equation is , together with its complex conjugate. The omitted quadratic interaction must not be added silently when solving this specified theory.
For circumference and Hamiltonian operator with a periodic boundary condition, the plane waves have energies , where and . Minimal coupling gives , where is the magnetic flux oriented consistently with increasing position around the ring. The ordered spectrum is periodic in with period one, corresponding to magnetic flux quantum .
On , its lowest two energies are and . Their crossings at half-integer can be opened by a potential that couples the relevant momentum states.
Minimal coupling 2026-10-13
Minimal coupling introduces a gauge potential through a covariant derivative, or replaces canonical momentum by . The associated scalar potential supplies the electric coupling. Magnetic minimal coupling is the magnetic-only nonrelativistic case.
For a spinless particle, minimal coupling gives . Choose the vector potential and . Its curl is and , so
The translation separation in a magnetic field gradient follows from : a simultaneous energy eigenstate can be written . The periodic boundary condition requires , hence , . The remaining Schrödinger equation is
This magnetic-gradient quartic confinement has a positive quartic coefficient for . If , it is a single well at zero, with . Its harmonic curvature gives
Thus the two lowest states are respectively even and odd, with one central peak or two opposite-sign lobes, and approximately . They are not a nearly degenerate pair.
If , the two minima are , , with zero potential there and a central barrier . For well-separated minima the lowest parity states of a symmetric double well are
Here are the localized ground-state Gaussians. Their even combination is the lower state; the odd combination has a node at the origin. Weak quantum tunnelling gives an exponentially small double-well tunneling splitting.
To obtain their common leading energy, put . Since ,
The double-well oscillator scale in a linear magnetic field therefore gives
The asymptotic condition is , so the barrier separates narrow local oscillator states. It is this scale comparison that makes the source's “large” ratio meaningful.
The signed group velocity of a magnetic-gradient doublet follows by differentiating the band energy with respect to the conserved wavevector:
For the double-well branch has and moves along ; reversing both signs reverses its velocity. To this order the two parity states have the same velocity. Corrections include local anharmonicity and the exponentially small splitting. The spinless Hamiltonian specified here has no extra Zeeman effect term.
Figure 1.
Original quartic magnetic-gradient potentials and numerical lowest even/odd wavefunctions for opposite wavevector signs
. Source. Details.
For a particle of charge and mass in a uniform magnetic field , minimal coupling replaces momentum by . Choose Landau gauge and first restrict motion to the plane. Since is conserved,
These Landau levels quantize the classical cyclotron motion. The wavefunctions are harmonic-oscillator functions centred at , multiplied by . Changing shifts the guiding centre without changing the energy. Gauge-dependent labels such as are not themselves observables; the level spacing and degeneracy are gauge independent. The magnetic length is the transverse orbital scale.
For a large rectangle of sides , periodicity along gives . Requiring centres inside the sample gives, for each orbital level and each specified spin state,
Thus each magnetic flux quantum supplies one guiding-centre state. The continuum bulk count neglects boundary corrections; magnetic periodic conditions on a torus require integer flux count. A finite confining edge lifts the simple flat guiding-centre spectrum near that edge.
Figure 1.
Translated oscillator centres and degenerate orbital Landau levels in a uniform field
. Details.
spin adds a Zeeman term. For electrons with gyromagnetic factor , its contribution is , with and . If and the orbital mass is , the branches become and : the lowest combined level has one spin branch, while positive levels coincide in pairs. In a material, effective mass and effective need not give that coincidence.
In three dimensions, free motion parallel to adds , so each orbital index labels a one-dimensional continuum rather than an isolated three-dimensional energy. Resolved magnetic quantization requires the spacing to exceed substantial thermal and disorder broadening. The changing occupation of these levels underlies magnetic quantum oscillations; in two dimensions their degeneracy and filling are central to the integer quantum Hall effect. These statements assume nonrelativistic, approximately independent particles, rather than arbitrary interacting or disordered spectra.
A uniform magnetic field quantizes the transverse cyclotron motion of an electron. With electron charge and the Landau gauge for a uniform magnetic field , minimal coupling gives
For an eigenstate of with eigenvalue , this is a quantum harmonic oscillator centered at , with cyclotron frequency . Its Landau levels are
The oscillator width is set by the magnetic length . In three dimensions, the free motion parallel to the magnetic field adds . The electron spin adds a Zeeman splitting . In a crystal the appropriate band effective mass and effective spin factor replace the free-electron values.
Changing moves the orbit center without changing the energy. In a rectangle , adjacent allowed centers differ by . Requiring the center to lie in the sample gives the degeneracy of a Landau level, per spin,
This large state degeneracy, together with the increasing level spacing, rearranges the occupied states as the magnetic field changes. To resolve the Landau levels, thermal broadening and disorder broadening should both be small compared with .
The de Haas-van Alphen effect is an oscillation of magnetization as successive Landau levels pass the Fermi energy. The Shubnikov-de Haas effect is the corresponding oscillation in longitudinal magnetoresistance. For a simple orbit, successive crossings occur periodically in ; the general relation to the extremal orbit area is Onsager quantization. These measurements reveal the geometry and effective masses of a Fermi surface.
In a two-dimensional electron system, filling an integer number of resolved levels leads to the integer quantum Hall effect, with
and very small longitudinal resistivity on a plateau. Disorder localization helps produce finite plateau widths. Cyclotron resonance provides another direct signature: radiation is absorbed at the adjacent-level spacing .
The components of the momentum operator do not generally commute with a position-dependent magnetic vector potential. Expanding minimal coupling with the ordering intact gives
Acting on a wavefunction shows that . In the Coulomb gauge the divergence vanishes, so the two cross terms agree. Discarding the quadratic term in the weak radiation amplitude gives
The equality of the two operator orderings follows from the gauge condition, not from treating and as commuting numbers component by component.
Let the electric charge be , where is the elementary charge. Minimal coupling to a tangential magnetic vector potential gives
A constant tangential magnetic vector potential is an available gauge on the ring, so . By Stokes theorem, its circulation is the oriented magnetic flux
The orientation matters here. In the original diagram, increasing goes anticlockwise, whose associated positive normal points out of the page, whereas the indicated positive magnetic flux points into the page. Hence for that diagram, and its convention gives . If instead is defined with the normal associated to , the relation is .
There is no requirement that the magnetic field be nonzero on the ring: it can be confined to a solenoid inside it. The nonzero circulation of the magnetic vector potential still affects the electron through the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
Use and regard as the signed charge in the printed minimal coupling. Multiplying the first Dirac equation by gives , with . Removing the rest-energy phase yields
For the alternative equation use its specified field conventions literally. They give
Consequently its Hamiltonian is . The two shifted equations are
These electric-field factors depend on the source's convention ; substituting a different Gaussian or SI definition without changing the equation would give incorrect powers of .
Choose electric scalar potential and the symmetric gauge , whose curl is . Minimal coupling gives . Since and ,
The magnetic term is velocity dependent; it is not an ordinary position-only potential.
Treat and as independent variables during variation. With Minkowski metric , differentiation with respect to gives
The Euler-Lagrange field equation is therefore . The static purely temporal potential has , giving
variation with respect to gives . This is the complex conjugate equation when the driving force is real, as is required for the supplied lagrangian density to be real. For a complex driving amplitude a real source term would instead require conjugate coefficients. The interaction supplied here is linear in the external potential: adding the term from full minimal coupling would change the problem and its equation of motion.
Introduce the electromagnetic electromagnetic field tensor and the charged vector field strength , with . Minimal coupling gives
Under and ,
Consequently the required relation is
Then , its complex conjugate transforms oppositely, the mass bilinear is invariant, and . Each term in the total Lagrangian density is therefore invariant under the electromagnetic U(1) gauge symmetry. This phase gauge symmetry does not reinstate the broken gradient-shift gauge symmetry of the massive field itself.
Set , so . Expanding the minimally coupled Lagrangian density gives
Thus there is a derivative cubic interaction vertex of order , and a quartic interaction vertex of order . There is no pure contact term in this minimal coupling theory, nor an Abelian three-photon interaction vertex.
Figure 1.
Cubic and quartic charged-vector vertices, and the two photon-exchange channels for identical charged vector bosons
. Details.
The straight arrowed lines in the original schematic denote charged massive vector bosons; the wavy lines denote photons. For two identical positively charged vector bosons, the leading scattering amplitude has the order- -channel photon-exchange Feynman diagram, together with its -channel interchange required by identical bosons. A quartic interaction vertex cannot directly attach four external massive vector bosons. For a particle-antiparticle incoming pair, the leading channels instead are -channel exchange and -channel photon annihilation. The shown arrows track charge flow; an outgoing charged particle corresponds to the conjugate field at a vertex.
Time reversal of an electromagnetic gauge field Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
The vector Dirac current has an even temporal component and odd spatial components under time-reversal symmetry. Invariance of its real minimal coupling therefore gives the displayed transformation of the gauge field, up to a gauge transformation. Differentiation at yields , with . Thus the electric field is even and the magnetic field is odd.