Electric quadrupole moment and the tensor magnetic polarizability of twisted electrons and a potential for their measurements

Abstract

For a twisted (vortex) Dirac particle in nonuniform electric and magnetic fields, the relativistic Foldy-Wouthuysen Hamiltonian is derived including high order terms describing new effects. The result obtained shows for the first time that a twisted spin-1/2 particle possesses a tensor magnetic polarizability and a measurable (spectroscopic) electric quadrupole moment. We have calculated the former parameter and have evaluated the latter one for a twisted electron. The tensor magnetic polarizability of the twisted electron can be measured in a magnetic storage ring because a beam with an initial orbital tensor polarization acquires a horizontal orbital vector polarization. The electric quadrupole moment is rather large and strongly influences the dynamics of the intrinsic orbital angular momentum. Three different methods of its measurements, freezing the intrinsic orbital angular momentum and two resonance methods, are proposed. The existence of the quadrupole moment of twisted electrons can lead to practical applications.

20 pages, with supplemental material

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Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Smith-Purcell radiation of a vortex electron
• Exact quantum-mechanical equations for particle beams
• Production of twisted particles in heavy-ion collisions
• Vortex particles in axially symmetric fields and applications of the quantum Busch theorem