Aharonov--Bohm Effect in the Abelian Higgs Theory

Abstract

We study a field--theoretical analogue of the Aharonov--Bohm effect in the Abelian Higgs Model: the corresponding topological interaction is proportional to the linking number of the Abrikosov--Nielsen--Olesen string world sheets and the particle world trajectory. The creation operators of the strings are explicitly constructed in the path integral and in the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory. We show that the Aharonov--Bohm effect gives rise to several nontrivial commutation relations. We also study the Aharonov--Bohm effect in the lattice formulation of the Abelian Higgs Model. It occurs that this effect gives rise to a nontrivial interaction of tested charged particles.