Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 512
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4357-5

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Relativistic Landau levels in the rotating cosmic string spacetime

¹ Grupo de Física Teórica (GFT), Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE, 60714-903, Brazil
² Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Faculdade de Educação, Ciências e Letras de Iguatu, Rua Deocleciano Lima Verde, Iguatu, CE, Brazil
³ Instituto Federal de Ciência, Educação e Tecnologia, IFCE Departamento de Física, Sobral, 62040-730, Brazil
⁴ Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal da Paraíba-UFPB, Caixa Postal 5008, João Pessoa, PB, 58051-970, Brazil

^* e-mail: celio.muniz@uece.br

Received: 15 June 2016
Accepted: 7 September 2016
Published online: 20 September 2016

Abstract

In the spacetime induced by a rotating cosmic string we compute the energy levels of a massive spinless particle coupled covariantly to a homogeneous magnetic field parallel to the string. Afterwards, we consider the addition of a scalar potential with a Coulomb-type and a linear confining term and completely solve the Klein–Gordon equations for each configuration. Finally, assuming rigid-wall boundary conditions, we find the Landau levels when the linear defect is itself magnetized. Remarkably, our analysis reveals that the Landau quantization occurs even in the absence of gauge fields provided the string is endowed with spin.