title: Relativistic electron vortex beams: angular momentum and spin-orbit interaction.
abstract: Motivated by the recent discovery of electron vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (AM), we construct exact Bessel-beam solutions of the Dirac equation. They describe relativistic and nonparaxial corrections to the scalar electron beams. We describe the spin and orbital AM of the electron with Berry-phase corrections and predict the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in free space. This can be observed as a spin-dependent probability distribution of the focused electron vortex beams. Moreover, the magnetic moment is calculated, which shows different g factors for spin and orbital AM and also contains the Berry-phase correction.
authors: Applied Optics Group, School of Physics, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland.
authors: Konstantin Y
authors: KY
authors: Bliokh
authors: Mark R
authors: MR
authors: Dennis
authors: Franco
authors: F
authors: Nori