Aharonov-Bohm Effect: Real or Myth?

[Mk]

Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm, conducted a seminal "electrodynamics" laboratory experiment ("Significance of Electromagnetic Potentials in Quantum Theory," The Physical Review, Vol. 115, No. 3, pp. 485-491; August, 1959). Aharonov and Bohm, almost 100 years after Maxwell first predicted their existence, succeeded in actually measuring the "hidden potential" of free space, lurking in Maxwell's original scalar quaternion equations. To do so, they had to cool the experiment to a mere 9 degrees above Absolute Zero, thus creating a total shielding around a superconducting magnetic ring

Totally screened, by all measurements, from the magnetic influence of the ring itself, a test beam of electrons fired by Aharonov and Bohm at the superconducting "donut," nonetheless, changed their electronic state ("wave functions") as they passed through the observably "field-free" region of the hole -- indicating they were sensing "something," even though it could NOT be the ring's magnetic field. Confirmed now by decades of other physicists' experiments as a true phenomenon (and not merely improper shielding of the magnet), this "Aharonov-Bohm Effect" provides compelling proof of a deeper "spatial strain" -- a "scalar potential" -- underlying the existence of a so-called magnetic "force-field" itself. (Later experiments revealed a similar effect with shielded electrostatic fields ...)

Is this thing for real? Have you heard of it?

 

[Creator]

Yes, Mk; the Aharonov-Bohm effect is real. As untenable as it seems, charged particles passing through a magnetic vector potential, even though it is a field free region of space, change the phase of their wavefunction. This has been easily demonstrated with superconductors.

Creator