AHARONOV-BOHM SCATTERING OF WAVE-PACKETS BY MAXWELL COILS

Maxwell coils are solenoids of spheroidal shape which produce a consta nt magnetic field inside the coil; at large distances the field of a M axwell coil becomes that of a magnetic dipole. The current in systems consisting of several confocal Maxwell coils can be adjusted in such a way that the magnetic field inside the smallest coil is constant and the back flux is confined to the interior of the largest coil. Quantum -mechanical scattering of charged particles by Maxwell coils, or syste ms thereof, is first formulated as a three-dimensional problem and the n treated within a two-dimensional approximation. The evolution in tim e of wave packets, which are Gaussian wave packets in the beginning, i s calculated numerically. In all cases an Aharonov-Bohm effect is obse rved in the angular distribution of the scattered wave packets. The ba ck flux results only in an additional deflection of the packets, which corresponds to the classical deflection caused by the Lorentz force.