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arXiv:1703.06413 · Physical Review A

Rotating Gaussian wave packets in weak external potentials

Arseni Goussev

Published Jul 14, 2017• 7 citations
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Abstract

We address the time evolution of two- and three-dimensional nonrelativistic Gaussian wave packets in the presence of a weak external potential of arbitrary functional form. The focus of our study is the phenomenon of rotation of a Gaussian wave packet around its center of mass, as quantified by mean angular momentum computed relative to the wave-packet center. Using a semiclassical approximation of the eikonal type, we derive an explicit formula for a time-dependent change of mean angular momentum of a wave packet induced by its interaction with a weak external potential. As an example, we apply our analytical approach to the scenario of a two-dimensional quantum particle crossing a tilted ridge potential barrier. In particular, we demonstrate that the initial orientation of the particle wave packet determines the sense of its rotation, and report a good agreement between analytical and numerical results.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.013617

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We address the time evolution of two- and three-dimensional nonrelativistic Gaussian wave packets in the presence of a weak external potential of arbitrary functional form. The focus of our study is the phenomenon of rotation of a Gaussian wave packet around its center of mass, as quantified by mean angular momentum computed relative to the wave-packet center. Using a semiclassical approximation of the eikonal type, we derive an explicit formula for a time-dependent change of mean angular momentum of a wave packet induced by its interaction with a weak external potential. As an example, we apply our analytical approach to the scenario of a two-dimensional quantum particle crossing a tilted ridge potential barrier. In particular, we demonstrate that the initial orientation of the particle wave packet determines the sense of its rotation, and report a good agreement between analytical and numerical results.
We study two-dimensional quantum Gaussian packets with a fixed value of mean angular momentum. This value is the sum of two independent parts: the ‘external’ momentum related to the motion of the packet center and the ‘internal’ momentum due to quantum fluctuations. The packets minimizing the mean energy of an isotropic oscillator with the fixed mean angular momentum are found. They exist for ‘co-rotating’ external and internal motions, and they have nonzero correlation coefficients between coordinates and momenta, together with some (moderate) amount of quadrature squeezing. Variances of angular momentum and energy are calculated, too. Differences in the behavior of ‘co-rotating’ and ‘anti-rotating’ packets are shown. The time evolution of rotating Gaussian packets is analyzed, including the cases of a charge in a homogeneous magnetic field and a free particle. In the latter case, the effect of initial shrinking of packets with big enough coordinate-momentum correlation coefficients (followed by the well known expansion) is discovered. This happens due to a competition of ‘focusing’ and ‘de-focusing’ in the orthogonal directions.
The evolution of the center-of-mass wave function for a mesoscopic particle according to the Schr\"odinger-Newton equation can be approximated by a harmonic potential if the wave function is narrow compared to the size of the mesoscopic particle. It was noticed by Colin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 93, 062102 (2016).] that, in the regime where self-gravitational effects are weak, intermediate and wider wave functions may be approximated by a harmonic potential as well but with a width-dependent coupling, leading to a time evolution that is determined only by a differential equation for the width of a Gaussian wave function as a single parameter. Such an approximation results in considerably less computational effort in order to predict the self-gravitational effects on the wave-function dynamics. Here, we provide an alternative approach to this kind of approximation, including a rigorous derivation of the equations of motion for an initially Gaussian wave packet under the assumption that its shape is conserved. Our result deviates to some degree from the result by Colin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 93, 062102 (2016).], specifically in the limit of wide wave functions.
The structure of time-dependent Gaussian solutions for the Kostin equation in dissipative quantum mechanics is analyzed. Expanding the generic external potential near the center of mass of the wave packet, one conclude that: the center of mass follows the dynamics of a classical particle under the external potential and a damping proportional to the velocity; the width of the wave packet satisfy a non-conservative Pinney equation. An appropriate perturbation theory is developed for the free particle case, solving the long standing problem of finding analytic expressions for square integrable solutions of the free Kostin equation. The associated Wigner function is also studied.
Wave-packet scattering from a stationary potential is significantly modified when the wave packet is subject to an external time-dependent force during the interaction. In the semiclassical limit, wave-packet motion is simply described by Newtonian equations, and the external force can, for example, cancel the potential force, making a potential barrier transparent. Here we consider wave-packet scattering from reflectionless potentials, where in general the potential becomes reflective when probed by an accelerated wave packet. In the particular case of the recently introduced class of complex Kramers-Kronig potentials we show that a broad class of time-dependent forces can be applied without inducing any scattering, while there is a breakdown of the reflectionless property when there is a broadband distribution of initial particle momentum, involving both positive and negative components.
We introduce an approximation scheme to perform an analytic study of the oscillation phenomena in a pedagogical and comprehensive way. By using Gaussian wave packets, we show that the oscillation is bounded by a time-dependent vanishing function which characterizes the slippage between the mass-eigenstate wave packets. We also demonstrate that the wave packet spreading represents a secondary effect which plays a significant role only in the nonrelativistic limit. In our analysis, we note the presence of a new time-dependent phase and calculate how this additional term modifies the oscillating character of the flavor conversion formula. Finally, by considering box and sine wave packets we study how the choice of different functions to describe the particle localization changes the oscillation probability.
Localization of relativistic particles have been of great research interests over many decades. We investigate the time evolution of the Gaussian wave packets governed by the one dimensional Dirac equation. For the free Dirac equation, we obtain the evolution profiles analytically in many approximation regimes, and numerical simulations consistent with other numerical schemes. Interesting behaviors such as Zitterbewegung and Klein paradox are exhibited. In particular, the dispersion rate as a function of mass is calculated, and it yields an interesting result that super-massive and massless particles both exhibit no dispersion in free space. For the Dirac equation with random potential or mass, we employ the Chebyshev polynomials expansion of the propagator operator to numerically investigate the probability profiles of the displacement distribution when the potential or mass is uniformly distributed. We observe that the widths of the Gaussian wave packets decrease approximately with the power law of order o(s−ν)o(s^{-ν})o(s−ν) with $\frac{1}{2}