Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: We present an exhaustive class of states with quantum backflow—the phenomenon in which a state consisting entirely of positive momenta has negative current and the probability flows in the opposite direction to the momentum. They are characterized by a general function of momenta subject to very weak conditions. Such a family of states is of interest in the light of a recent experimental proposal to measure backflow. We find one particularly simple state which has surprisingly large backflow—about 41% of the lower bound on flux derived by Bracken and Melloy. We study the eigenstates of a regularized current operator and we show how some of these states, in a certain limit, lead to our class of backflow states. This limit also clarifies the correspondence between the spectrum of the regularized current operator, which has just two non-zero eigenvalues in our chosen regularization, and the usual current operator.
Authors: J J Halliwell, E Gillman, O Lennon, M Patel, I Ramirez
Institution: Imperial College London
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1968381650