Combined Electric and Magnetic Aharonov-Bohm Effects

Abstract

It is well-known that the electric and magnetic Aharonov-Bohm effects may be formally described on equal footing using the four-vector potential in a relativistic framework. We propose an illustrative manifestation of both effects in a single configuration, in which the specific path of the charged particle determines the weight of the electric and magnetic acquired relative phases. The phases can be distinctively obtained in the Coulomb gauge. The scheme manifests the pedagogical lesson that though each of the relative phases is gauge-dependent their sum is gauge-invariant.