A pedagogical Approach to the Aharonov Bohm effect

Abstract

We carry out a pedagogical approach to the Aharonov Bohm effect. To this aim, we employ the Comsol multiphysics program package to calculate the energy spectra of twodimensional quantum ring systems. We show that the Aharonov Bohm takes place when the system has an “interior” (i.e., non-trivial topology) pierced by a magnetic field. In addition, we show that the symmetry of the system affects the energy spectra but not the presence/absence of the Aharonov Bohm effect. Finally, we demonstrate that it is the total field flux and not the vector potential what influences the system.