English

Spreading of relativistic probability densities and Lorentz contraction

Quantum Physics 2018-04-04 v1

Abstract

We find the laws for the spreading of the spatial widths (parallel and transverse to the direction of average motion) of the relativistic position probability density for a massive, spinless particle. We find that when the momentum width of the wavepacket is small compared to the average momentum, there is a long time over which spreading is minimal. This result may be useful in particle accelerator design. We also demonstrate the Lorentz contraction of a wavepacket using relativistic probability amplitudes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.00826,
  title  = {Spreading of relativistic probability densities and Lorentz contraction},
  author = {Scott E. Hoffmann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.00826},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages, 1 figure