Magnetismhas engaged explorers and scientists for over two millennia. The ancient Greeks and Turks noted the attraction between magnetite (lodestone) and iron (Cullity and Graham, 1978). Explorers used lodestone’s magnetization to construct compass needles used to point to the direction of the earth’s magnetic North Pole. This singularly important device aided in navigation and the exploration ...

We show that there is an analogous Aharonov-Casher topological effect on a neutral particle with electric dipole moment interacting with a magnetic field produced by magnetic monopoles.

The Röntgen quantum phase shift is exhibited by the interference of point particles endowed with an electric dipole moment due to their motion relative to a source of the magnetic field. Here we show, using arguments involving the classical concepts of force and its impulse, that the Röntgen phase shift arises within a largely classical (semiclassical) theoretical framework. All the subtleties ...