Classical motion in synthetic monopole fields

Sammanfattning: In the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for a quantum system the emergent synthetic magnetic field can be seen as generated by monopoles at points of degeneracy, in full analogue to the synthetic fields generating the geometric phase of adiabatically evolving quantum systems. The plausibility of using these synthetic magnetic monopoles as a means to study magnetic monopole dynamics in the absence of fundamental magnetic monopoles has been explored. A bipartite spin system consisting of a dumbbell translating and rotating through space has been modelled, and full equations of motion in the presence of an external magnetic field have been derived. A collection of scripts for numerical evaluation of these equations of motion were subsequently developed, and further put to use in sample simulations for a small range of parameters. The results demonstrate non-negligible perturbations to the centre of mass motion when compared to motion not considering the Born-Oppenheimer synthetic fields, for dumbbell masses of small but not unrealistic proportions. The problems inherent in this approach to elucidating motion in magnetic monopole fields are discussed, but the method should not yet be dismissed until further investigations have been made.