Abstract

Berry's work on quantum systems described by adiabatically varying Hamiltonians is introduced. Some simple systems exhibiting the "Berry phase" phenomenon are discussed, including: a spin-½ particle in a slowly varying magnetic field, linearly polarised light propagating down a helically wound optical fibre, and dynamic Jahn-Teller E ⊗ ϵ systems. The way in which the Berry phase concept illuminates the origin of anomalies in chiral gauge field theories, and the fermionic behaviour of solitons in certain scalar field theories (skyrmions), is also indicated.

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