Zitterbewegung of bosons

Abstract

Zitterbewegung of massive and massless scalar bosons and a massive Proca (spin-1) boson is analyzed. The equations describing the evolution of the velocity and position of the scalar boson in the generalized Feshbach-Villars representation and the corresponding equations for the massive Proca particle in the Sakata-Taketani representation are equivalent to each other and to the well-known equations for the Dirac particle. However, Zitterbewegung does not appear in the Foldy-Wouthuysen representation. Since the position and velocity operators in the Foldy-Wouthuysen representation and their transforms to other representations are the quantum-mechanical counterparts of the corresponding classical variables, Zitterbewegung is not observable.