2024/04/30 by J. P. Palastro, Palastro, J. P., D. Ramsey +7
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.00209
openalex publication_date 2024/04/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The Dirac equation has resided among the greatest successes of modern physics since its emergence as the first quantum mechanical theory fully compatible with special relativity. This compatibility ensures that the expectation value of the velocity is less than the vacuum speed of light. Here, we show that the Dirac equation admits free-particle solutions where the peak amplitude of the wavefunction can travel at any velocity, including those exceeding the vacuum speed of light, despite having a subluminal velocity expectation value. The solutions are constructed by superposing basis functions with correlations in momentum space. These arbitrary velocity wavefunctions feature a near-constant profile and may impact quantum mechanical processes that are sensitive to the local value of the probability density as opposed to expectation values.