New application of decomposition of U(1) gauge potential:Aharonov-Bohm effect and Anderson-Higgs mechanism

Abstract

In this paper we study the Aharonov-Bohm (A-B) effect and Anderson-Higgs mechanism in Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductors from the perspective of the decomposition of U(1) gauge potential. By the Helmholtz theorem, we derive exactly the expression of the transverse gauge potential ${\vec{A}}_{\perp }$ in A-B experiment, which is gauge-invariant and physical. For the case of a bulk superconductor, we find that the gradient of the total phase field $\theta$ provides the longitudinal component ${\vec{A}}_{\parallel }$, which reflects the Anderson-Higgs mechanism. For the case of a superconductor ring, the gradient of the longitudinal phase field ${\theta }_1$ provides the longitudinal component ${\vec{A}}_{\parallel }$, while the transverse phase field ${\theta }_2$ produces new physical effects such as the flux quantization inside a superconducting ring.

6 pages, no figures, final version to appear in Modern Physics Letters B

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• Reply to the Comment on "Spin and orbital angular momentum in gauge theories: Nucleon spin structure and multipole radiation revisited" [PRL 100:232002 (2008)]
• Spin and orbital angular momentum in gauge theories: Nucleon spin structure and multipole radiation revisited
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• The issue of gauge choice in the Landau problem and the physics of canonical and mechanical orbital angular momenta
• The role of electron orbital angular momentum in the Aharonov-Bohm effect revisited
• Problems related to gauge invariance and momentum, spin decomposition in nucleon structure study