Dirac Cat States in Relativistic Landau Levels

We show that a relativistic version of Schrodinger cat states, here called Dirac cat states, can be built in relativistic Landau levels when an external magnetic field couples to a relativistic spin 1/2 charged particle. Under suitable initial conditions, the associated Dirac equation produces unitarily Dirac cat states involving the orbital quanta of the particle in a well defined mesoscopic regime. We demonstrate that the proposed Dirac cat states have a purely relativistic origin and cease to exist in the non-relativistic limit. In this manner, we expect to open relativistic quantum mechanics to the rich structures of quantum optics and quantum information.Comment: Revtex4, color figures, submitted for publicatio

The relation between the model of a crystal with defects and Plebanski's theory of gravity

In the present investigation we show that there exists a close analogy of geometry of spacetime in GR with a structure of defects in a crystal. We present the relation between the Kleinert's model of a crystal with defects and Plebanski's theory of gravity. We have considered the translational defects - dislocations, and the rotational defects - disclinations - in the 3- and 4-dimensional crystals. The 4-dimensional crystalline defects present the Riemann-Cartan spacetime which has an additional geometric property - "torsion" - connected with dislocations. The world crystal is a model for the gravitation which has a new type of gauge symmetry: the Einstein's gravitation has a zero torsion as a special gauge, while a zero connection is another equivalent gauge with nonzero torsion which corresponds to the Einstein's theory of "teleparallelism". Any intermediate choice of the gauge with nonzero connection A^{IJ}_\mu is also allowed. In the present investigation we show that in the Plebanski formulation the phase of gravity with torsion is equivalent to the ordinary or topological gravity, and we can exclude a torsion as a separate dynamical variable.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Gauge-invariant and infrared-improved variational analysis of the Yang-Mills vacuum wave functional

We study a gauge-invariant variational framework for the Yang-Mills vacuum wave functional. Our approach is built on gauge-averaged Gaussian trial functionals which substantially extend previously used trial bases in the infrared by implementing a general low-momentum expansion for the vacuum-field dispersion (which is taken to be analytic at zero momentum). When completed by the perturbative Yang-Mills dispersion at high momenta, this results in a significantly enlarged trial functional space which incorporates both dynamical mass generation and asymptotic freedom. After casting the dynamics associated with these wave functionals into an effective action for collections of soft vacuum-field orbits, the leading infrared improvements manifest themselves as four-gradient interactions. Those turn out to significantly lower the minimal vacuum energy density, thus indicating a clear overall improvement of the vacuum description. The dimensional transmutation mechanism and the dynamically generated mass scale remain almost quantitatively robust, however, which ensures that our prediction for the gluon condensate is consistent with standard values. Further results include a finite group velocity for the soft gluonic modes due to the higher-gradient corrections and indications for a negative differential color resistance of the Yang-Mills vacuum.Comment: 47 pages, 5 figures (vs2 contains a few minor stylistic adjustments to match the published version

The Physical Principles of Quantum Mechanics. A critical review

The standard presentation of the principles of quantum mechanics is critically reviewed both from the experimental/operational point and with respect to the request of mathematical consistency and logical economy. A simpler and more physically motivated formulation is discussed. The existence of non commuting observables, which characterizes quantum mechanics with respect to classical mechanics, is related to operationally testable complementarity relations, rather than to uncertainty relations. The drawbacks of Dirac argument for canonical quantization are avoided by a more geometrical approach.Comment: Bibliography and section 2.1 slightly improve

The su(1,1) dynamical algebra from the Schr\"odinger ladder operators for N-dimensional systems: hydrogen atom, Mie-type potential, harmonic oscillator and pseudo-harmonic oscillator

We apply the Schr\"odinger factorization to construct the ladder operators for hydrogen atom, Mie-type potential, harmonic oscillator and pseudo-harmonic oscillator in arbitrary dimensions. By generalizing these operators we show that the dynamical algebra for these problems is the $su(1,1)$ Lie algebra.Comment: 10 page

Cyclotron motion and magnetic focusing in semiconductor quantum wells with spin-orbit coupling

We investigate the ballistic motion of electrons in III-V semiconductor quantum wells with Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a perpendicular magnetic field. Taking into account the full quantum dynamics of the problem, we explore the modifications of classical cyclotron orbits due to spin-orbit interaction. As a result, for electron energies comparable with the cyclotron energy the dynamics are particularly rich and not adequately described by semiclassical approximations. Our study is complementary to previous semiclassical approaches concentrating on the regime of weaker fields.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures included, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Electron-radiation interaction in a Penning trap: beyond the dipole approximation

We investigate the physics of a single trapped electron interacting with a radiation field without the dipole approximation. This gives new physical insights in the so-called geonium theory.Comment: 12 pages, RevTeX, 6 figures, Approved for publication in Phys. Rev.