TOPOLOGICAL EFFECTS IN QUANTUM MECHANICS AND HIGH VELOCITY ESTIMATES

We consider the problem of obtaining high-velocity estimates for finite energy solutions (wave packets) to Schrödinger equations for N-body systems. We discuss a time-dependent method that allows us to obtain precise estimates with error bounds that decay as a power of the velocity. We apply this method to the electric Aharonov–Bohm effect. We give the first rigorous proof that quantum mechanics predicts the existence of this effect. Our result follows from an estimate in norm, uniform in time, that proves that the Aharonov–Bohm Ansatz is a good approximation to the exact solution to the Schrödinger equation for high velocity.