English

Berry's phase and the anomalous velocity of Bloch wavepackets

Other Condensed Matter 2010-02-21 v2

Abstract

The semiclassical equations of motion for a Bloch electron include an anomalous velocity term analogous to a kk-space "Lorentz force", with the Berry connection playing the role of a vector potential. By examining the adiabatic evolution of Bloch states in a monotonically-increasing vector potential, I show that the anomalous velocity can be explained as the difference in the Berry's phase acquired by adjacent Bloch states within a wavepacket.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0912.0716,
  title  = {Berry's phase and the anomalous velocity of Bloch wavepackets},
  author = {Y. D. Chong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0912.0716},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

2 pages, 1 figure