The phase of a quantum mechanical particle in curved spacetime (Q5955378)

In this paper the authors have examined the proposal that the phase of the wave function for a quantum mechanical particle in curved space is \(S / \hbar=\int p_\mu dx^mu / \hbar\) as is often quoted in the literature, by investigating the wave equations for spin 0, 1/2 and 1 particles in the background of an arbitrary static gravitational field which can be written in isotropic coordinates. Thus, the wave equations have a simple manageable form and do not make a weak gravitational field approximation. The wave equations are interpreted in terms of a quantum mechanical particle moving in a medium with a spatially varying effective index of refraction. It is found that for spin 1/2 particles the assumption is satisfied exactly, but for spin 0 and 1 this is only true to lowest order in \(\hbar\). This is a consequence of the first order spatial derivative structure of the Dirac equation for spin 1/2 particles. For spin 0 and 1 a WKB solution is developed to explore phase corrections beyond the lowest order in \(\hbar\).