Observable Zitterbewegung in Curved Spacetimes

Abstract

Zitterbewegung, as it was originally described by Schrödinger, is an unphysical, non-observable effect. We verify whether the effect can be observed in non-inertial reference frames/curved spacetimes, where the ambiguity in defining particle states results in a mixing of positive and negative frequency modes. We explicitly demonstrate that such a mixing is in fact necessary to obtain the correct classical value for a particle's velocity in a uniformly accelerated reference frame, whereas in cosmological spacetime a particle does indeed exhibit Zitterbewegung.

16 pages, V2: more general calculations presented, version accepted in Physics Letters B

References in corpus (2)

• Analogue of cosmological particle creation in an ion trap
• Cosmological Zitterbewegung

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Electron dynamics in noncommutative geometry with magnetic field and Zitterbewegung phenomenon
• The noncommutative geometry of Zitterbewegung
• Current Density of Majorana Bound States
• Dirac Equation with Space Contributions Embedded in a Quantum-Corrected Gravitational Field