Abstract

In this work, we review two formalisms of coherent states for the case of a particle in a magnetic field. We focus our revision on both pioneering (Feldman and Kahn 1970 Phys. Rev. B 1 4584) and recent (Kowalski and Rembieliński 2005 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 38 8247) formulations of coherent states for this problem. We introduce a general application, the Husimi function, which takes into account collective and environmental effects, and which can be derived in a variety of ways. However, we calculate this function as the expected value of the density operator in a basis of coherent states. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.