- #1
sokrates
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I was trying to explain the origin of spin-orbit coupling to a beginning student and I used the following naive analogy:
An electron orbiting around the nucleus "sees" the nucleus rotating about itself (the electron) in its own (electron's) reference frame, thus this is like a current loop about the electron and this "current loop" causes an effective magnetic field from the electron's perspective.
I kind of can see why this is not exactly correct (because of the classical references it makes), but could this at least be an intuitive view of understanding it?
I know spin-orbit coupling can be rigorously derived from relativistic QM (Dirac eq.) but I usually use the Schrodinger equation with a few higher order perturbative terms such as Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings...
It's been a while since I looked at special relativity so I might be making a serious conceptual error in my simple analogy, any ideas?
An electron orbiting around the nucleus "sees" the nucleus rotating about itself (the electron) in its own (electron's) reference frame, thus this is like a current loop about the electron and this "current loop" causes an effective magnetic field from the electron's perspective.
I kind of can see why this is not exactly correct (because of the classical references it makes), but could this at least be an intuitive view of understanding it?
I know spin-orbit coupling can be rigorously derived from relativistic QM (Dirac eq.) but I usually use the Schrodinger equation with a few higher order perturbative terms such as Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings...
It's been a while since I looked at special relativity so I might be making a serious conceptual error in my simple analogy, any ideas?
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