Observable Zitterbewegung in curved spacetimes
Open accessAbstract
Zitterbewegung, as it was originally described by Schrödinger, is an unphysical, non-observable effect. We verify whether the effect can be observed in non-inertial reference frames/curved spacetimes, where the ambiguity in defining particle states results in a mixing of positive and negative frequency modes. We explicitly demonstrate that such a mixing is in fact necessary to obtain the correct classical value for a particle's velocity in a uniformly accelerated reference frame, whereas in cosmological spacetime a particle does indeed exhibit Zitterbewegung.
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This conclusion agrees with previous studies [3-5,9-14] for massive particles.
“This is the same conclusion which has been made in the previous studies [3-5,9-14].”
From <i>Zitterbewegung</i> of massless particles (2022) · cites this paper as [14]
Section 4 (Cosmological Zitterbewegung; page unavailable) reports an oscillatory term in the particle’s velocity and says the effect vanishes for massless particles. But the cited paper’s conclusion (Section 5; page unavailable) distinguishes settings: Zitterbewegung can occur in its toy cosmological model but is unobservable for a uniformly accelerated observer. The citing sentence does not specify which conclusion it says agrees with this study, so agreement for massive particles generally is not established. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Kobakhidze, A., Manning, A., & Tureanu, A.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Tureanu, Anca
- Venue
- Physics Letters B
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-06
- Volume
- 757
- Pages
- 84-91
- ISSN
- 0370-2693 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2306171217
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 0.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Physics Letters B (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (acceptedVersion)
- Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Australian Research Council
- Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (DI/8/6-100/12, DI/12/6-200/13)
- Academy of Finland (136539)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Relativity and Gravitational Theory
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
- Keywords
- Zitterbewegung, curved spacetime, non-inertial frames, particle velocity, cosmological spacetimes, quantum field theory in curved spacetime
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