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Neutrons Cannot Encircle Lines of Electric Charge Unphased

JAN 01, 1990

Glasses were raised at a conference at the University of South Carolina in December to toast the 30‐year‐old prediction that gave reality to the magnetic vector potential. According to that prediction, made by Yakir Aharonov (University of South Carolina and the University of Tel Aviv) and David Bohm (Birkbeck College of London University), an electron will experience a phase shift as it encircles an infinitely long solenoid, even though there is no magnetic field—only a vector potential—in the region where it travels. Almost all those who originally doubted this conclusion have long since been persuaded by several elegant experimental confirmations.

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Volume 43, Number 1

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