On coherence lengths of wave packets

Kenzo Ishikawa, Yutaka Tobita

Published 2009-06-22, updated 2009-11-03Version 3

Coherence lengths of one particle states described by quantum wave functions are studied. We show that one particle states in various situations are not described by simple plane waves but are described by wave packets that are superpositions of plane waves. Wave packet is an approximate eigenstate of the free Hamiltonian and has a finite spatial size which we call the coherence length. The coherence lengths in the coordinate space and in the momentum space are studied in the present paper. We investigate several mechanisms of forming wave packets, stabilities of wave packets, and transformations of wave packets.