A Mechanical Model of the Charge-Monopole System

Abstract

The motion of a spinning particle, whose spin is constrained to point towards a fixed point in space, is shown to be identical to that of a charged particle moving in a magnetic monopole field. Quantization of this mechanical system is straight forward. In contrast to the quantum description of the charge-monopole system, no singularities are present. Only when suppressing the cyclic spin coordinate, a singularity corresponding to the "Dirac string" of the magnetic monopole will arise.