Physica B: Condensed Matter 531 (2018) 213–215

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Physica B: Condensed Matter

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/physb

Harmonic oscillator in an elastic medium with a spiral dislocation

A.V.D.M. Maia, K. Bakke *
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Caixa Postal 5008, 58051-900, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: We investigate the behaviour of a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator in an elastic medium that possesses a
Spiral dislocation spiral dislocation (an edge dislocation). We show that the Schrödinger equation for harmonic oscillator in the
Linear topological defects
presence of a spiral dislocation can be solved analytically. Further, we discuss the effects of this topological
Harmonic oscillator
defect on the confinement to a hard-wall confining potential. In both cases, we analyse if the effects of the
Analytical solutions
topology of the spiral dislocation gives rise to an Aharonov-Bohm-type effect for bound states.

1. Introduction section 3, we confine the system to a hard-wall confining potential, and

thus, obtain the energy levels of the system; in section 4, we present
At present days, it is well-known that linear topological defects in our conclusions.
solids can be described by differential geometry [1–3]. In a crystal,
these kinds of defects are related to the presence of curvature and tor- 2. Harmonic oscillator in the presence of a spiral dislocation
sion. Another line of research goes to the context of general relativ-
ity, where it deals with linear topological defects in the spacetime [4]. Let us consider an elastic medium that contains an edge dislocation,
The common point between these areas of physics is the description which corresponds to the distortion of a circle into a spiral. This defect
of these defects made by the Volterra process [1,2,4,5]. Up to now, a is called as a spiral dislocation [3]. This topological defects is described
great deal of study has explored quantum system in the presence of by the line element:
disclinations [6–10] and screw dislocations [5,11–16] in the context of 2 2
( 2 2
) 2 2
condensed matter physics. In particular, torsion effects related to the . s = dr + 2𝛽 dr d𝜑 + 𝛽 + r d𝜑 + dz ,
d (1)
presence of topological defects are in the interests of studies of semi- where the constant 𝛽 is the parameter related to the dislocation. Next,
conductors [17–20]. Moreover, spacetimes with space-like disclinations let us confine a spinless particle to the harmonic oscillator potential
and with space-like dislocations [4] have also been investigated as back- (V (r) = 12 m 𝜔2 r 2 ) in the background given by the spiral dislocation (1).
grounds of relativistic quantum systems [21–27]. On the hand, studies Therefore, the time-independent Schrödinger equation for the harmonic
of an edge dislocation through differential geometry and its influence oscillator in the presence of the spiral dislocation is (we shall use the
on quantum systems have not been widely explored. In recent years, units ℏ = c = 1)
geometric quantum phases have been discussed in the presence of a ( ) ( )
1 𝛽 2 𝜕2 𝜓 1 1 𝛽 2 𝜕𝜓 𝛽 𝜕2 𝜓
spiral dislocation [28]. In this work, we shall discuss the influence of a 𝜓 = − 1+ 2 − − +
2m r 𝜕r 2 2m r r3 𝜕r m r 2 𝜕r 𝜕𝜑
spiral dislocation (an edge dislocation) on the harmonic oscillator. We
shall show that the Schrödinger equation for a spinless particle confined 1 𝜕2 𝜓 1 𝛽 𝜕𝜓 1 𝜕2 𝜓 1
− − − + m 𝜔2 r 2 𝜓. (2)
to a harmonic oscillator in the presence of a spiral dislocation can be 2m r 2 𝜕𝜑2 2m r 3 𝜕𝜑 2m 𝜕z2 2
solved analytically. Further, we extend our discussion to the confine-
Note that we have written the operator ̂p2 = −∇2 in Eq. (2) in terms of
ment to a hard-wall confining potential. ( √ )
the Laplace-Beltrami operator [5–7]: ∇ = √1g 𝜕i g ij g 𝜕j , where gij is
2
The structure of this paper is: in section 2, we write the Schrödinger
equation in the background established by the spiral dislocation, and the metric tensor, g ij is the inverse of gij and g = det|gij |. Note that the
thus we obtain its exact solutions. Then, we analyse the influence of indices {i, j} run over the space coordinates.
the spiral dislocation on the energy levels of the harmonic oscillator; in

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kbakke@fisica.ufpb.br (K. Bakke).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physb.2017.12.045
Received 27 October 2017; Received in revised form 14 December 2017; Accepted 15 December 2017
Available online 18 December 2017
0921-4526/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A.V.D.M. Maia and K. Bakke Physica B: Condensed Matter 531 (2018) 213–215

As we can see in Eqs. (1) and (2), this system has the cylindrical 3. Hard-wall confining potential
symmetry, thus, a simple way of writing the solution to Eq. (2) is in
terms of the eigenvalues of the z-components of the angular momentum Let us consider the presence of a hard-wall confining potential in
and the linear momentum operators as: 𝜓 (r, 𝜑, z) = eil𝜑+ikz R (r), where the system discussed in the previous section. Then, for a fixed radius r0 ,
k is a constant and l = 0, ±1, ±2, ±3, ±4 …. In this way, we obtain the due to the presence of the spiral dislocation we have x0 = m𝜔[r02 + 𝛽 2 ].
radial equation: Therefore, the confinement of the quantum particle to a hard-wall
( ) ( ) potential gives the following boundary condition:
𝛽2 1 𝛽2 2𝛽 l l2
1 + 2 R″ + − 3 −i 2 R′ − 2 R ( ) ( )
r r r r r f r0 → f x0 = 0. (9)
𝛽l ( ) From Eq. (6), we have the parameters of the confluent hypergeomet-
+i R − m2 𝜔2 r 2 R + 2m − k2 R = 0. (3)
ric function: a = |2| + 12 − 𝜆 and b = |l| + 1; thus, by considering a fixed
r3 l

A possible solution to Eq. (3) can be given in the form: value for the parameter b and the parameter 𝜆 to be large, we [ can write
]
( ( ))
r the confluent hypergeometric function for a fixed x0 = m𝜔 r02 + 𝛽 2 as
R (r) = exp i l tan−1 × f (r) , (4)
𝛽 [32]:
(√ )
where f (r) is an unknown function. After substituting the radial wave ( ) 𝜋 𝜋
F a, b; x0 ∝ cos
1 1
2b x0 − 4a x0 − b + . (10)
function (4) into Eq. (3), we obtain the following equation for the func- 2 4
tion f (r):
Hence, from Eq. (9), we obtain the energy levels that stem from the
( ) ( )
𝛽2 1 𝛽2 l2 interaction of quantum particle with the harmonic oscillator subject to
1 + 2 f″ + − 3 f′ − ( 2 ) f − m2 𝜔2 r 2 f
r r r r + 𝛽2 a hard-wall confining potential:
( ) ( )2
+ 2m − k2 f = 0. (5) 1 |l| 3𝜋 1 k2
n, l = ( ) n𝜋 + 𝜋+ − m 𝜔2 𝛽 2 + . (11)
( 2 ) 2m r 2 + 𝛽 2 2 4 2 2m
Next, let us define x = m𝜔 r + 𝛽 2 . Hence, by analysing the 0
behaviour of Eq. (5) at x → ∞ and x → 0 [29,30], we can write its In Eq. (11), we have two contributions to the energy levels that
solution as arises from the topological effects of the spiral dislocation. The first
( )
x |l| |l| 1 one corresponds to the presence of an effective radius given by 𝜌0 =
f (x) = e− 2 x 2 1 F1 + − 𝜆, |l| + 1; x , (6) √
2 2 r02 + 𝛽 2 . The second contribution is given by the second term of the
( )
where 1 F1 |l| + 12 − 𝜆, |l| + 1; x is the confluent hypergeometric func- right-hand side of Eq. (11). By comparing with the Aharonov-Bohm-
2
1 ( ) type effect for bound states discussed in Refs. [16,23,26] (where the
tion [31,32] and 𝜆 = 4m𝜔 2m − k2 + m2 𝜔2 𝛽 2 . Observe that the topology of the screw dislocation also modifies the angular momen-
asymptotic behaviour of a confluent hypergeometric function for large tum), we have that the effects of the topology of the spiral dislocation
values of its argument is given by Ref. [32] on the energy levels (11) yield no change in the angular momentum
( ) quantum number. In this sense, there is no Aharonov-Bohm-type effect
( ) Γ b x a−b [ ( )]
F a, b ; x ≈
1 1
e x 1 +  |x|−1 , (7) for bound states [7,21,33].
Γ (a)
therefore, it diverges when x → ∞. With the purpose of obtaining
4. Conclusions
bound states solutions to the Schrödinger equation, we need to impose
that a = −n (n = 0, 1, 2, 3, …), i.e., we need that |l| + 12 − 𝜆 = −n. With
2 We have analysed the interaction of a quantum particle with the
this condition, the confluent hypergeometric function becomes well-
two-dimensional harmonic oscillator in an elastic medium that pos-
behaved when x → ∞. Then, from the relation |l| + 12 − 𝜆 = −n, we
2 sesses a spiral dislocation. We have seen that the effects of the topology
obtain
of the spiral dislocation yields a new contribution to the spectrum of
( ) 1 k2 energy of the harmonic oscillator. By comparing the effects that stems
n, l = 𝜔 2n + |l| + 1 − m 𝜔2 𝛽 2 + . (8)
2 2m from the presence of the spiral dislocation with the screw dislocation
Hence, Eq. (8) give us the energy levels of the harmonic oscillator discussed in Ref. [7], we have seen that no change in the angular
in the presence of a spiral dislocation. We can observe that the topo- momentum is given by the topological effects of the spiral dislocation,
logical effects of the spiral dislocation modify the spectrum of energy therefore, no Aharonov-Bohm-type effect for bound states [33] can be
of the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator, by yielding a new con- observed.
tribution given by the second term of the right-hand side of Eq. (8). We also have analysed the interaction of quantum particle with the
In contrast to the results obtained in Ref. [7], where the presence harmonic oscillator subject to a hard-wall confining potential in the
of the screw dislocation modifies the angular momentum1 and gives presence of the spiral dislocation. Two contributions to the energy lev-
rise to an Aharonov-Bohm-type effect for bound states [33], the pres- els arises from the topological effects of the spiral dislocation, where
ence of the spiral dislocation (an edge dislocation) gives no contribu- one of
√ them is given by the presence of a fixed effective radius,
tion to the angular momentum quantum number in the energy levels. 𝜌0 = r02 + 𝛽 2 , in the energy levels. Besides, no contribution to the
In this sense, there is no Aharonov-Bohm-type effect for bound states angular momentum is given by the topology of the spiral dislocation,
[7,21,33]. Note that, by taking 𝛽 = 0 in Eq. (8), we recover the spectrum hence, there is no Aharonov-Bohm-type effect for bound states [33].
of energy of the two dimensional harmonic oscillator in the absence of
defect [7].
Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Brazilian agencies CNPq and CAPES for
financial support.

1
It yields an effective angular momentum given by leff = l−𝜒 pz , where 𝜒 is the
parameter that describes the screw dislocation and pz is the eigenvalues of the opera-
tor ̂
pz = −iℏ 𝜕z . Then, the energy levels of the harmonic oscillator are determined by leff .

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A.V.D.M. Maia and K. Bakke Physica B: Condensed Matter 531 (2018) 213–215

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