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arXiv · 1508.06322

Observable Zitterbewegung in Curved Spacetimes

Archil Kobakhidze·Adrian Manning·Anca Tureanu
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Abstract

Zitterbewegung, as it was originally described by Schr\"odinger, 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.

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Archil Kobakhidze, Adrian Manning, Anca Tureanu. 2015-08-25. Observable Zitterbewegung in Curved Spacetimes. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2016.03.049

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