Behaviour of wavepackets of the 'Dirac oscillator': Dirac representation versus Foldy - Wouthuysen representation

Abstract

The behaviour of wavepackets of the `Dirac oscillator' in (1 + 1) dimensions is examined. The Dirac oscillator is a relativistic extension of the harmonic oscillator. We construct a wavepacket in the usual Dirac representation and another one in the Foldy - Wouthuysen (FW) representation. In the nonrelativistic limit, these wavepackets are both reduced to Schrödinger's coherent wavepacket for the harmonic oscillator. The wavepacket in the Dirac representation exhibits Zitterbewegung whereas the one in the FW representation does not. We find that the wavepacket in the FW representation behaves much more like a classical particle than that of the Dirac representation. This gives insights into Ehrenfest's theorem for the Dirac equation.