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arXiv:2305.11989

Feynman-Kac path integral expansion around the upside-down oscillator

Zbigniew Haba

Published May 19, 2023• 0 citations
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Abstract

We discuss path integrals for quantum mechanics with a potential which is a perturbation of the upside-down oscillator. We express the path integral (in the real time) by the Wiener measure. We obtain the Feynman integral for perturbations which are the Fourier-Laplace transforms of a complex measure and for polynomials of the fotm $x^{4n}$ and $x^{4n+2}$ (where $n$ is a natural number). We extend the method to quantum field theory (QFT) with complex scaled spatial coordinates ${\bf x}\rightarrow i{\bf x}$. We show that such a complex extension of the path integral (in the real time) allows a rigorous path integral treatment of a large class of potentials including the ones unbounded from below.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2305.11989

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We discuss path integrals for quantum mechanics with a potential which is a perturbation of the upside-down oscillator. We express the path integral (in the real time) by the Wiener measure. We obtain the Feynman integral for perturbations which are the Fourier-Laplace transforms of a complex measure and for polynomials of the fotm x4nx^{4n}x4n and x4n+2x^{4n+2}x4n+2 (where nnn is a natural number). We extend the method to quantum field theory (QFT) with complex scaled spatial coordinates x→ix{\bf x}\rightarrow i{\bf x}x→ix. We show that such a complex extension of the path integral (in the real time) allows a rigorous path integral treatment of a large class of potentials including the ones unbounded from below.
Abstract Feynman developed the path integral approach to quantum mechanics as an alternative to wave or matrix mechanics that has found fruitful implementation in quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and statistical physics. Despite its many successes, the usual Feynman path integral formalism suffers from a lack of mathematical rigor. Questions of mathematical rigor still exist, but Mark Kac provided a rigorous path integral approach to quantum mechanics. The Kac formulation for quantum systems is given in terms of Wiener measure for a path integral and employs the Brownian motion distribution. In this paper, we review the Feynman–Kac approach and other stochastic processes related to Brownian motion. We also give an account of the successes and difficulties we faced during our journey through numerical path integral problems involved in physics.
The Feynman path integral has revolutionized modern approaches to quantum physics. Although the path integral formalism has proven very successful and spawned several approximation schemes, the direct evaluation of real-time path integrals is still extremely expensive and numerically delicate due to its high-dimensional and oscillatory nature. We propose an efficient method for the numerical evaluation of the real-time world-line path integral for theories where the potential is dominated by a quadratic at infinity. This is done by rewriting the high-dimensional oscillatory integral in terms of a series of low-dimensional oscillatory integrals, that we efficiently evaluate with Picard-Lefschetz theory or approximate with the eikonal approximation. Subsequently, these integrals are stitched together with a series of fast Fourier transformations to recover the lattice regularized Feynman path integral. Our method directly applies to problems in quantum mechanics, the word-line quantization of quantum field theory, and quantum gravity.
A generalized Feynman-Kac formula based on the Wiener measure is presented. Within the setting of a quantum particle in an electromagnetic field it yields the standard Feynman-Kac formula for the corresponding Schrödinger semigroup. In this case rigorous criteria for its validity are compiled. Finally, phase-space path-integral representations for more general quantum Hamiltonians are derived. These representations rely on a generalized Lie-Trotter formula which takes care of the operator-ordering multiplicity, but in general is not related to a path measure.
Path integration methods are of crucial importance to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. There are multiple ways the path integral can be constructed, one method uses the link between the Fokker-Planck and the Langevin equations, as is covered in this thesis. This is related to the standard derivation of the path integral in physics, in which the time is discretised. We study the mathematical problems related to the Feynman path integral, in particular the impossibility of a Lebesgue-type measure on the space of paths. It is discussed how oscillatory integrals can be used to have a well-defined `integral' on an infinite dimensional space. This formalism is subsequently applied to both the harmonic and the anharmonic oscillator. We prove an infinite dimensional oscillatory integral exists and obtain a convergent expression for both these cases, under conditions. Examples of these conditions are the initial wavefunctions being Schwartz functions as well as conditions on the endtime, angular frequency and coupling constant. Finally, a possible approach to establish an oscillatory integral for the hydrogen atom is discussed. It is proven that the result is no longer independent of the sequence of projection operators, which is a key step towards a rigorous path integral for this system.
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We will derive a rigorous real-time propagator for the non-relativistic quantum mechanical L 2 transition probability amplitude and for the non-relativistic wavefunction. The propagator will be given explicitly in terms of the time evolution operator. The derivation will be for all self-adjoint non-vector potential Hamiltonians. For systems with potentials that carry at most a finite number of singularity and discontinuities, we will show that our propagator can be written in the form of a rigorous real-time, time-sliced Feynman path integral via improper Riemann integrals. We will also derive the Feynman path integral in a non-standard analysis formulation. Finally, we will compute the propagator for the harmonic oscillator using the non-standard analysis Feynman path-integral formulation; we will compute the propagator without using any knowledge of the classical properties of the harmonic oscillator.