Verification of the semiclassical method for an electron moving in a homogeneous magnetic field.

Abstract

A procedure based on the semiclassical approximation for high energy levels is developed to yield solutions to the classical equation of charge motion and to the Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi spin equation. To this end, exact solutions to the Klein-Gordon and the Dirac-Pauli equations are used. The essence of the procedure under review is that the quantum state of a charged particle in a homogeneous magnetic field is represented as a superposition of states corresponding to the neighboring energy levels. As a consequence, the expectation values of the momentum and spin operators with respect to the resulting nonstationary wave function (packet) strictly obey the classical equations of charge motion and spin precession.