How to build a non-spreading wave packet in quantum mechanics

1999/05/24 by S. Bruce, Bruce, S.
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9905078

arxiv created 1999/05/24 · openalex publication_date 1999/05/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Quantum mechanics asserts that a wave packet must inevitably spread as time progresses since the dispersion relation for the quantum waves is assumed to be quadratic in the momentum k. However, this assumption does not consider the standard frequency Doppler shift formula of Galilean relativity. In this article a non-dispersive wave packet is constructed by appropriately considering the transformation rules between the laboratory and the (particle's) rest inertial reference frames.

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