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On coherence lengths of wave packets

Quantum Physics 2009-12-03 v3 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Coherence lengths of one particle states described by quantum wave functions are studied. We show that one particle states in various situations are not described by simple plane waves but are described by wave packets that are superpositions of plane waves. Wave packet is an approximate eigenstate of the free Hamiltonian and has a finite spatial size which we call the coherence length. The coherence lengths in the coordinate space and in the momentum space are studied in the present paper. We investigate several mechanisms of forming wave packets, stabilities of wave packets, and transformations of wave packets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.3938,
  title  = {On coherence lengths of wave packets},
  author = {Kenzo Ishikawa and Yutaka Tobita},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.3938},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

29 pages,5 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:16:10.912Z