Center of the charged particle orbit for any linear gauge

Abstract

In the case of a constant uniform magnetic field it can be assumed, without the loss of generality, that the vector potential (the gauge) is a linear function of position, i.e. it could be considered as a three-dimensional real matrix or, more generally in an n-dimensional space, as a tensor A of the rank two. The magnetic tensor H is obtained from A by antisymmetrization, i.e. H=A-A^T. It is shown that the transpose of A plays a special role, since it determines the operator of the orbit center of a charged particle moving in an external magnetic field H. Moreover, this movement can be considered as a combination of N<=n independent cyclotronic movements in orthogonal planes (cyclotron orbits) with quantized energies, whereas in other n-2N dimensions the particle is completely free with a continuous energy spectrum. The proposed approach enables introduction of the four-dimensional space-time and, after some generalizations, non-linear gauges.