We investigate the vacuum polarization and the Casimir energy of a Dirac field coupled to a scalar potential in one spatial dimension. Both of these effects have a common cause which is the distortion of the spectrum due to the coupling with the back
ground field. Choosing the potential to be a symmetrical square-well, the problem becomes exactly solvable and we can find the whole spectrum of the system, analytically. We show that the total number of states and the total density remain unchanged as compared with the free case, as one expects. Furthermore, since the positive- and negative-energy eigenstates of the fermion are fermion-number conjugates of each other and there is no zero-energy bound state, the total density and the total number of negative and positive states remain unchanged, separately. Therefore, the vacuum polarization in this model is zero for any choice of the parameters of the potential. It is important to note that although the vacuum polarization is zero due to the symmetries of the model, the Casimir energy of the system is not zero in general. In the graph of the Casimir energy as a function of the depth of the well there is a maximum approximately when the bound energy levels change direction and move back towards their continuum of origin. The Casimir energy for a fixed value of the depth is a linear function of the width and is always positive. Moreover, the Casimir energy density (the energy density of all the negative-energy states) and the energy density of all the positive-energy states are exactly the mirror images of each other. Finally, computing the total energy of a valence fermion present in the lowest fermionic bound state, taking into account the Casimir energy, we find that the lowest bound state is almost always unstable for the scalar potential.
We investigate a coupled system of a Dirac particle and a pseudoscalar field in the form of a soliton in (1+1) dimensions and find some of its exact solutions numerically. We solve the coupled set of equations self-consistently and non-perturbative
ly by the use of a numerical method and obtain the bound states of the fermion and the shape of the soliton. That is the shape of the static soliton in this problem is not prescribed and is determined by the equations themselves. This work goes beyond the perturbation theory in which the back reaction of the fermion on soliton is its first order correction. We compare our results to those of an exactly solvable model in which the soliton is prescribed. We show that, as expected, the total energy of our system is lower than the prescribed one. We also compute non-perturbatively the vacuum polarization of the fermion induced by the presence of the soliton and display the results. Moreover, we compute the soliton mass as a function of the boson and fermion masses and find that the results are consistent with Skyrmes phenomenological conjecture. Finally, we show that for fixed values of the parameters, the shape of the soliton obtained from our exact solutions depends slightly on the fermionic state to which it is coupled. However, the exact shape of the soliton is always very close to the isolated kink.
In this paper we define a non-dynamical phase for a spin-1/2 particle in a rotating magnetic field in the non-adiabatic non-cyclic case, and this phase can be considered as a generalized Berry phase. We show that this phase reduces to the geometric B
erry phase, in the adiabatic limit, up to a factor independent of the parameters of the system. We could add an arbitrary phase to the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian due to the gauge freedom. Then, we fix this arbitrary phase by comparing our Berry phase in the adiabatic limit with the Berrys result for the same system. Also, in the extreme non-adiabatic limit our Berry phase vanishes, modulo $2pi$, as expected. Although, our Berry phase is in general complex, it becomes real in the expected cases: the adiabatic limit, the extreme non-adiabatic limit, and the points at which the state of the system returns to its initial form, up to a phase factor. Therefore, this phase can be considered as a generalization of the Berry phase. Moreover, we investigate the relation between the value of the generalized Berry phase, the period of the states and the period of the Hamiltonian.
We consider a fermion chirally coupled to a prescribed pseudoscalar field in the form of the soliton of the sine-Gordon model and calculate and investigate the Casimir energy and all of the relevant quantities for each parity channel, separately. We
present and use a simple prescription to construct the simultaneous eigenstates of the Hamiltonian and parity in the continua from the scattering states. We also use a prescription we had introduced earlier to calculate unique expressions for the phase shifts and check their consistency with both the weak and strong forms of the Levinson theorem. In the graphs of the total and parity decomposed Casimir energies as a function of the parameters of the pseudoscalar field distinctive deformations appear whenever a fermionic bound state energy level with definite parity crosses the line of zero energy. However, the latter graphs reveal some properties of the system which cannot be seen from the graph of the total Casimir energy. Finally we consider a system consisting of a valence fermion in the ground state and find that the most energetically favorable configuration is the one with a soliton of winding number one, and this conclusion does not hold for each parity, separately.
In this paper we compute the Casimir energy for a coupled fermion-pseudoscalar field system. In the model considered in this paper the pseudoscalar field is textit{static} and textit{prescribed} with two adjustable parameters. These parameters determ
ine the values of the field at infinity ($pm theta_0$) and its scale of variation ($mu$). One can build up a field configuration with arbitrary topological charge by changing $theta_0$, and interpolate between the extreme adiabatic and non-adiabatic regimes by changing $mu$. This system is exactly solvable and therefore we compute the Casimir energy exactly and unambiguously by using an energy density subtraction scheme. We show that in general the Casimir energy goes to zero in the extreme adiabatic limit, and in the extreme non-adiabatic limit when the asymptotic values of the pseudoscalar field properly correspond to a configuration with an arbitrary topological charge. Moreover, in general the Casimir energy is always positive and on the average an increasing function of $theta_0$ and always has local maxima when there is a zero mode, showing that these configurations are energetically unfavorable. We also compute and display the energy densities associated with the spectral deficiencies in both of the continua, and those of the bound states. We show that the energy densities associated with the distortion of the spectrum of the states with $E>0$ and $E<0$ are mirror images of each other. We also compute and display the Casimir energy density. Finally we compute the energy of a system consisting of a soliton and a valance electron and show that the Casimir energy of the system is comparable with the binding energy.
We compute the Casimir energy for a system consisting of a fermion and a pseudoscalar field in the form of a prescribed kink. This model is not exactly solvable and we use the phase shift method to compute the Casimir energy. We use the relaxation me
thod to find the bound states and the Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg method to obtain the scattering wavefunctions of the fermion in the whole interval of $x$. The resulting phase shifts are consistent with the weak and strong forms of the Levinson theorem. Then, we compute and plot the Casimir energy as a function of the parameters of the pseudoscalar field, i.e. the slope of $phi(x)$ at x=0 ($mu$) and the value of $phi(x)$ at infinity ($theta_0$). In the graph of the Casimir energy as a function of $mu$ there is a sharp maximum occurring when the fermion bound state energy crosses the line of E=0. Furthermore, this graph shows that the Casimir energy goes to zero for $murightarrow 0$, and also for $murightarrow infty$ when $theta_0$ is an integer multiple of $pi$. Moreover, the graph of the Casimir energy as a function of $theta_0$ shows that this energy is on the average an increasing function of $theta_0$ and has a cusp whenever there is a zero fermionic mode. We finally compute the total energy of a system consisting of a valence fermion in the ground state. Most importantly, we show that this energy (the sum of the Casimir energy and the energy of the fermion) is minimum when the background field has winding number one, independent of the details of the background profile. Throughout the paper we compare our results with those of a simple exactly solvable model, where a piece-wise linear profile approximates the kink. We find that the kink is an almost reflectionless barrier for the fermions, within the context of our model.
