Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Photographs of the conference
- Introduction: Conceptual issues in quantum field theory
- Part One Philosophers' interest in quantum field theory
- Part Two Three approaches to the foundations of quantum field theory
- Part Three
- Part Four Mathematics, statistics and quantum field theory
- Part Five Quantum field theory and space-time
- Part Six
- Part Seven Renormalization group
- Part Eight Non-Abelian gauge theory
- 20 Gauge fields, gravity and Bohm's theory
- 21 Is the Aharonov–Bohm effect local?
- Part Nine The ontology of particles or fields
- Part Ten
- Name index
- Subject index
21 - Is the Aharonov–Bohm effect local?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Photographs of the conference
- Introduction: Conceptual issues in quantum field theory
- Part One Philosophers' interest in quantum field theory
- Part Two Three approaches to the foundations of quantum field theory
- Part Three
- Part Four Mathematics, statistics and quantum field theory
- Part Five Quantum field theory and space-time
- Part Six
- Part Seven Renormalization group
- Part Eight Non-Abelian gauge theory
- 20 Gauge fields, gravity and Bohm's theory
- 21 Is the Aharonov–Bohm effect local?
- Part Nine The ontology of particles or fields
- Part Ten
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
Aharonov and Bohm (1959) drew attention to the quantum mechanical prediction that an interference pattern due to a beam of charged particles could be produced or altered by the presence of a constant magnetic field in a region from which the particles were excluded. This effect was first experimentally detected by Chambers (1960), and since then has been repeatedly and more convincingly demonstrated in a series of experiments including the elegant experiments of Tonomura et al. (1986).
At first sight, the Aharonov-Bohm effect seems to manifest nonlocality. It seems clear that the (electro)magnetic field acts on the particles since it affects the interference pattern they produce; and this must be action at a distance since the particles pass through a region from which that field is absent. Now it is commonly believed that this appearance of nonlocality can be removed by taking it to be the electromagnetic potential Aμ rather than the field Fμν that acts locally on the particles: indeed, Bohm and Aharonov themselves took the effect to demonstrate the independent reality of the (electro)magnetic potential. But the nonlocality is real, not apparent, and cannot be removed simply by invoking the electromagnetic potential. While there may indeed be more to electromagnetism than can be represented just by the values of Fμν at all space-time points, acknowledging this fact still does not permit a completely local account of the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
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- Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field Theory , pp. 298 - 313Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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