Bohmian trajectories for the half-line barrier

Abstract

Bohmian trajectories are considered for a particle that is free (i.e. the potential energy is zero), except for a half-line barrier. On the barrier, both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions are considered. The half-line barrier yields one of the simplest cases of diffraction. Using the exact time-dependent propagator found by Schulman, the trajectories are computed numerically for different initial Gaussian wave packets. In particular, it is found that different boundary conditions may lead to qualitatively different sets of trajectories. In the Dirichlet case, the particles tend to be more strongly repelled. The case of an incoming plane wave is also considered. The corresponding Bohmian trajectories are compared with the trajectories of an oil drop hopping on the surface of a vibrating bath.