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arXiv:1404.6551 · International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics

Differentiable-path integrals in quantum mechanics

Benjamin Koch, Ignacio A. Reyes

Published Jun 2, 2015• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A method is presented which restricts the space of paths entering the path integral of quantum mechanics to subspaces of Cα, by only allowing paths which possess at least α derivatives. The method introduces two external parameters, and induces the appearance of a particular time scale ϵD such that for time intervals longer than ϵD the model behaves as usual quantum mechanics. However, for time scales smaller than ϵD, modifications to standard formulation of quantum theory occur. This restriction renders convergent some quantities which are usually divergent in the time-continuum limit ϵ → 0. We illustrate the model by computing several meaningful physical quantities such as the mean square velocity 〈v2〉, the canonical commutator, the Schrödinger equation and the energy levels of the harmonic oscillator. It is shown that an adequate choice of the parameters introduced makes the evolution unitary.

DOI
10.1142/s0219887815501005

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A method is presented which restricts the space of paths entering the path integral of quantum mechanics to subspaces of Cα, by only allowing paths which possess at least α derivatives. The method introduces two external parameters, and induces the appearance of a particular time scale ϵD such that for time intervals longer than ϵD the model behaves as usual quantum mechanics. However, for time scales smaller than ϵD, modifications to standard formulation of quantum theory occur. This restriction renders convergent some quantities which are usually divergent in the time-continuum limit ϵ → 0. We illustrate the model by computing several meaningful physical quantities such as the mean square velocity 〈v2〉, the canonical commutator, the Schrödinger equation and the energy levels of the harmonic oscillator. It is shown that an adequate choice of the parameters introduced makes the evolution unitary.
The conventional approach to quantum mechanics begins with the classical Hamiltonian and changes observables to non-commuting operators. Generally, the quantum mechanics based on the Schrodinger equation is preferred for a system of particles. But path integral formulation of quantum mechanics finds applications in more complicated situations, particularly, in quantum field theory. The purpose of solving the Schrodinger equation lies in finding the time evolution operator which is able to generate the time translation of the given system. Richard Feynman noticed that it was necessary to perform integrals over all space variables at every instant of time to find the transition amplitudes. Dissipative phenomena with a quantum origin manifest themselves in many different situations and hence the study of dissipative systems and their quantization is of a great theoretical and practical value. Many dissipative systems can be modelled as a linearly damped harmonic oscillator.
Path integrals are mathematical objects that can be considered as generalizations to an infinite number of variables, represented by paths, of usual integrals. They share the algebraic properties of usual integrals, but have new properties from the viewpoint of analysis. They are powerful tools for the study of quantum mechanics, since they emphasize very explicitly the correspondence between classical and quantum mechanics. Physical quantities are expressed as averages over all possible paths but, in the semi-classical limit, the leading contributions come from paths close to classical paths. Thus, path integrals lead to an intuitive understanding of physical quantities in the semi-classical limit, as well as simple calculations of such quantities. This observation can be illustrated with scattering processes, spectral properties, or barrier penetration effects. Even though the formulation of quantum mechanics based on path integrals seems mathematically more complicated than the usual formulation based on partial differential equations, the path integral formulation is well adapted to systems with many degrees of freedom, where a formalism of Schrödinger type is much less useful. It allows simple construction of a many-body theory both for bosons and fermions.
Lee's discretization Time is a continuous parameter in standard Schrödinger wave mechanics, and quantum wavefunctions are differentiable functions of that parameter. We shall refer to this as temporal differentiability . Temporal differentiability is assumed in Dirac's more abstract formulation of quantum mechanics, where state vectors in some abstract Hilbert space and Hermitian operators over that space depend on continuous time (CT) (Dirac, 1958). The same is assumed in relativistic quantum field theories, where quantum field operators in the Heisenberg picture are differentiable over time and space. Temporal differentiability is a necessary condition for the existence of the quantum wave equations and operator field equations found in such theories. Unfortunately, these differentiable equations are usually impossible to solve exactly, so various techniques such as perturbation theory and computer simulation are employed to make suitable approximations. Numerical techniques on their own, however, are insufficient to answer questions of principle, such as the meaning of quantized spacetime. A more principled approach to the solution of quantum differential equations, namely the path integral (PI), was developed, exploited and popularized principally by Feynman (Feynman and Hibbs, 1965). In some situations, such as quantum gravity, the PI was found to be virtually the only technology available to discuss the quantum physics. We discuss this approach in greater detail in Chapter 18.
Through a very careful analysis of Dirac's 1932 paper on the Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics as well as the second and third editions of his classic book {\it The Principles of Quantum Mechanics}, I show that Dirac's contributions to the birth of the path-integral approach to quantum mechanics is not restricted to just his seminal demonstration of how Lagrangians appear naturally in quantum mechanics, but that Dirac should be credited for creating a path-integral which I call {\it Dirac path-integral} which is far more general than Feynman's while possessing all its desirable features. On top of it, the Dirac path-integral is fully compatible with the inevitable quantisation ambiguities, while the Feynman path-integral can never have that full consistency. In particular, I show that the claim by Feynman that for infinitesimal time intervals, what Dirac thought were analogues were actually proportional can not be correct always. I have also shown the conection between Dirac path-integrals and the Schrödinger equation. In particular, it is shown that each choice of Dirac path-integral yields a {\it quantum Hamiltonian} that is generically different from what the Feynman path-integral gives, and that all of them have the same {\it classical analogue}. Dirac's method of demonstrating the least action principle for classical mechanics generalizes in a most straightforward way to all the generalized path-integrals.
Path integrals appear to offer natural and intuitively appealing methods for defining quantum-mechanical amplitudes for questions involving spacetime regions. For example, the amplitude for entering a spatial region during a given time interval is typically defined by summing over all paths between given initial and final points but restricting them to pass through the region at any time. We argue that there is, however, under very general conditions, a significant complication in such constructions. This is the fact that the concrete implementation of the restrictions on paths over an interval of time corresponds, in an operator language, to sharp monitoring at every moment of time in the given time interval. Such processes suffer from the quantum Zeno effect---the continual monitoring of a quantum system in a Hilbert subspace prevents its state from leaving that subspace. As a consequence, path integral amplitudes defined in this seemingly obvious way have physically and intuitively unreasonable properties and, in particular, no sensible classical limit. In this paper we describe this frequently occurring but little-appreciated phenomenon in some detail, showing clearly the connection with the quantum Zeno effect. We then show that it may be avoided by implementing the restriction on paths in the path integral in a ``softer'' way. The resulting amplitudes then involve a new coarse-graining parameter, which may be taken to be a time scale ϵϵϵ, describing the softening of the restrictions on the paths. We argue that the complications arising from the Zeno effect are then negligible as long as $ϵ\ensuremath{\gg}1/E$, where EEE is the energy scale of the incoming state.