Aharonov-Bohm Effect in Lattice Abelian Higgs Theory

Abstract

We study a field-theoretical analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in two-, three- and four-dimensional Abelian Higgs models; the corresponding topological interaction is proportional to the linking number of the Abrikosov vortex and the particle world trajectories. We show that the Aharonov-Bohm effect gives rise to a nontrivial interaction of charged test particles. The numerical calculations in the three-dimensional model confirm this fact.

Comments: 9 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure, uses epsf.sty; misprints are corrected, discussion on numerical results is extended, to appear in Phys.Lett.B