Position, spin, and orbital angular momentum of a relativistic electron

Motivated by recent interest in relativistic electron vortex states, we revisit the spin and orbital angular momentum properties of Dirac electrons. These are uniquely determined by the choice of the position operator for a relativistic electron. We consider two main approaches discussed in the literature: (i) the projection of operators onto the positive-energy subspace, which removes the Zitterbewegung effects and correctly describes spin-orbit interaction effects, and (ii) the use of Newton-Wigner-Foldy-Wouthuysen operators based on the inverse Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation. We argue that the first approach [previously described in application to Dirac vortex beams in K. Y. Bliokh et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 174802 (2011)] has a more natural physical interpretation, including spin-orbit interactions and a nonsingular zero-mass limit, than the second one.This work was supported by the RIKEN iTHES Project, MURI Center for Dynamic Magneto-Optics via the AFOSR Award No. FA9550-14-1-0040, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI), the IMPACT program of JST, CREST Grant No. JPMJCR1676, the John Templeton Foundation, the RIKEN-AIST “Challenge Research” program, and the Australian Research Council