Readers looking for “inaccuracies” in the Feynman Lectures might be interested in the misrepresentation of the quantum phase shift in the so-called magnetic Aharonov-Bohm effect in chapter 15.5 of volume two. Feynman describes the importance of the vector potential in quantum mechanics, presenting the electron interference experiment suggested by Aharonov and Bohm in his own usual fascinating way. However, the phase shift, revealed by the detector, is misrepresented in figure 15–7.
The influence of the perturbed reference wave in electron holography is considered for the case of static electromagnetic microfields, whose extension around the observed specimen cannot be neglected. These microfields are called ‘‘long-range’’ to distinguish them from the ‘‘short-range’’ ones, whose extension is strictly limited within the object wave and hence do not perturb the reference wave. Optical reconstructions of experimental holograms of simple electrostatic or magnetic long-range fields have been modeled and simulated. The results indicate that perturbation effects must be taken into account when long-range microfields are investigated by electron holography; it is also shown that their influence can be minimized by increasing the interference distance between the object and reference wave.
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