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arXiv:1509.01640 · Journal of Mathematical Physics

The semiclassical coherent state propagator in the Weyl representation

Carol Braun, Feifei Li, Anupam Garg, Michael Stone

Published Dec 1, 2015• 6 citations

Abstract

It is shown that the semiclassical coherent state propagator takes its simplest form when the quantum mechanical Hamiltonian is replaced by its Weyl symbol in defining the classical action, in that there is then no need for a Solari-Kochetov correction. It is also shown that such a correction exists if a symbol other than the Weyl symbol is chosen and that its form is different depending on the symbol chosen. The various forms of the propagator based on different symbols are shown to be equivalent provided the correspondingly correct Solari-Kochetov correction is included. All these results are shown for both particle and spin coherent state propagators. The global anomaly in the fluctuation determinant is further elucidated by a study of the connection between the discrete fluctuation determinant and the discrete Jacobi equation.

DOI: 10.1063/1.4936315

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It is shown that the semiclassical coherent state propagator takes its simplest form when the quantum mechanical Hamiltonian is replaced by its Weyl symbol in defining the classical action, in that there is then no need for a Solari-Kochetov correction. It is also shown that such a correction exists if a symbol other than the Weyl symbol is chosen and that its form is different depending on the symbol chosen. The various forms of the propagator based on different symbols are shown to be equivalent provided the correspondingly correct Solari-Kochetov correction is included. All these results are shown for both particle and spin coherent state propagators. The global anomaly in the fluctuation determinant is further elucidated by a study of the connection between the discrete fluctuation determinant and the discrete Jacobi equation.

The problem of an origin of the Solary-Kochetov extra-phase contribution to the naive semiclassical form of a generalized phase-space propagator is addressed with the special reference to the su(2) spin case which is the most important in applications. While the extra-phase correction to a flat phase-space propagator can straightforwardly be shown to appear as a difference between the principal and the Weyl symbols of a Hamiltonian in the next-to-leading order expansion in the semiclassical parameter, the same statement for the semiclassical spin coherent-state propagator holds provided the Holstein-Primakoff representation of the su(2) algebra generators is employed.

We construct a representation of the coherent state path integral using the Weyl symbol of the Hamiltonian operator. This representation is very different from the usual path integral forms suggested by Klauder and Skagerstam (1985 Coherent States: Applications in Physics and Mathematical Physics (Singapore: World Scientific)), which involve the normal or the antinormal ordering of the Hamiltonian. These different representations, although equivalent quantum mechanically, lead to different semiclassical limits. We show that the semiclassical limit of the coherent state propagator in the Weyl representation involves classical trajectories that are independent of the width of coherent states. This propagator is also free from the phase corrections found in Baranger et al ( 2001 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34 7227 ) for the two Klauder forms and provides an explicit connection between the Wigner and the Husimi representations of the evolution operator.

The overcompleteness of the coherent states basis leads to a multiplicity of representations of Feynman's path integral. These different representations, although equivalent quantum mechanically, lead to different semiclassical limits. Two such semiclassical formulas were derived in [1] for the two corresponding path integral forms suggested by Klauder and Skagerstan in [2]. Each of these formulas involve trajectories governed by a different classical representation of the Hamiltonian operator: the P representation in one case and the Q representation in other. In this paper we construct a third representation of the path integral whose semiclassical limit involves directly the Weyl representation of the Hamiltonian operator, i.e., the classical Hamiltonian itself.

In this work, we derived a semiclassical approximation for the matrix elements of a quantum propagator in coherent states (CS) basis that avoids complex trajectories; it only involves real ones. For that purpose, we used the symplectically invariant semiclassical Weyl propagator obtained by performing a stationary phase approximation (SPA) for the path integral in the Weyl representation. After that, for the transformation to CS representation SPA is avoided; instead a quadratic expansion of the complex exponent is used. This procedure also allows us to express the semiclassical CS propagator uniquely in terms of the classical evolution of the initial point without the need of any root search typical of van Vleck--Gutzwiller-based propagators. For the case of chaotic Hamiltonian systems, the explicit time dependence of the CS propagator has been obtained. The comparison with a realistic chaotic system that derives from a quadratic Hamiltonian, the cat map, reveals that the expression here derived is exact up to quadratic Hamiltonian systems.