Published July 2011 | Version v1
Journal article

Geometric phase of the gyromotion for charged particles in a time-dependent magnetic field

  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)
  • 2. Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08543 (United States) and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026 (China)

Description

We study the dynamics of the gyrophase of a charged particle in a magnetic field which is uniform in space but changes slowly with time. As the magnetic field evolves slowly with time, the changing of the gyrophase is composed of two parts. The first part is the dynamical phase, which is the time integral of the instantaneous gyrofrequency. The second part, called geometric gyrophase, is more interesting, and it is an example of the geometric phase which has found many important applications in different branches of physics. If the magnetic field returns to the initial value after a loop in the parameter space, then the geometric gyrophase equals the solid angle spanned by the loop in the parameter space. This classical geometric gyrophase is compared with the geometric phase (the Berry phase) of the spin wave function of an electron placed in the same adiabatically changing magnetic field. Even though gyromotion is not the classical counterpart of the quantum spin, the similarities between the geometric phases of the two cases nevertheless reveal the similar geometric nature of the different physics laws governing these two physics phenomena.

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physics of Plasmas
Journal Volume
18
Journal Issue
7
Journal Page Range
p. 072505-072505.7
ISSN
1070-664X
CODEN
PHPAEN

INIS

Country of Publication
United States
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
44006352
Subject category
S70: PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY;
Descriptors DEI
CHARGED PARTICLES; ELECTRONS; FUNCTIONS; GEOMETRY; GYROFREQUENCY; INTEGRALS; MAGNETIC FIELDS; MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS; PLASMA; SOLIDS; SPACE; SPIN; SPIN WAVES; TIME DEPENDENCE
Descriptors DEC
ANGULAR MOMENTUM; ELEMENTARY PARTICLES; FERMIONS; FLUID MECHANICS; HYDRODYNAMICS; LEPTONS; MATHEMATICS; MECHANICS; PARTICLE PROPERTIES

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2011 American Institute of Physics