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Path integral asymptotics in the absence of classical paths

Lawrence S. Schulman, Richard W. Ziolkowski

Published Jul 1, 1990• 5 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

When a boundary value problem in classical mechanics has no solution, the corresponding quantum propagator may be asymptotically dominated by locally flawed classical paths. We indicate how this assertion can be made precise and show how one calculates the propagator under these circumstances. The essential tools in our arguments will be the use of neutralizers and the path decomposition formula for path integrals. With this method the propagator for barrier penetration is expressed as an integral over real tunneling time, defined as the interval between first striking the barrier and last emerging from it. 14 refs., 3 figs.

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It is widely believed that the WKB approximation to quantum barrier penetration is described in the path-integral formalism by a saddle-point approximation based on an expansion about an imaginary-time semiclassical path. This article examines the relationship between tunneling amplitudes and imaginary-time paths. It is shown, using a simple example, that for some tunneling amplitudes the dominant semiclassical path cannot be chosen to have purely imaginary time if all other variables are chosen to be real.

American Journal of Physics•Nov 1, 1991•4 citations
When a boundary value problem in classical mechanics has no solution, the corresponding quantum propagator may be asymptotically dominated by locally flawed classical paths. We indicate how this assertion can be made precise and show how one calculates the propagator under these circumstances. The essential tools in our arguments will be the use of neutralizers and the path decomposition formula for path integrals. With this method the propagator for barrier penetration is expressed as an integral over real tunneling time, defined as the interval between first striking the barrier and last emerging from it. 14 refs., 3 figs.
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.
We define, using a path-integral method, an amplitude distribution for the traversal time of a particle tunneling through a barrier. We calculate this without approximation for the case of a square barrier potential. The form of the integrated distribution is shown to be determined by the uncertainty principle: if the particle is known to spend a time \ensuremath{\le}\ensuremath{\tau} inside the barrier, then an effective uncertainty \ensuremath{\Delta}V is introduced in the barrier height, such that \ensuremath{\Delta}V\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\approxeq}\ensuremath{\Elzxh}. The distribution has a number of interesting properties: it is noisy at very short times, oscillates periodically at intermediate times, and saturates to a constant at long times. The first two properties arise as a result of resonances in the transmission amplitude, which play an important role in the distribution. The characteristic (median) time scale for the distribution is shown to be ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\tau}}}_{\mathit{Q}}$=2md2{\mathit{md}}^{2}md2/\ensuremath{\Elzxh}. We show that this represents the average traversal time for particle energies that are close to the energy of the barrier height. For very opaque barriers, the oscillations have a very short period. We show that this can lead to anomalously short average traversal times, and resolves the outstanding problem that the average velocity of a tunneling particle may exceed the speed of light. For particles with energies above the height of the barrier (classical traversal), we find that the real part of the distribution is dominated by the classical path, and has a sharp peak around the classical traversal time. It is argued that the form of the distribution found in this work may be applied to general barrier shapes.
When tunneling occurs out of generic initial states, a significant fraction of probability is lost at early times during which the dynamics is governed by excited resonance states. However, first-principles analyses based on path integrals have only captured the leading asymptotic behavior during which the tunneling rate is dominated by the false vacuum contribution. In this work, we discuss the behavior in the pre-asymptotic regime from a first-principles path integral perspective. We demonstrate how the relevant expressions can be evaluated systematically through semi-classical methods in the recently developed steadyon picture. This approach allows one to trace the role of the relevant physical scales, making transparent the underlying assumptions and approximations and offering a clear path to establishing a systematically improvable framework to evaluate tunneling rates non-perturbatively.
By developing an analogy between the Feynman path integral and contour integral representations of the special functions, we obtain WKB formulas for barrier penetration from a path integral. We first show that there exists for the path integral a notion of contour independence in the time parameter. We then select an appropriate contour to describe the physical situation of barrier penetration and obtain asymptotic formulas from the function space integral. The method is interpreted as a path integral derivation of the complex ray description of barrier penetration. In the last three sections we investigate several canonical problems of the theory of complex rays with these path integral techniques.
It is widely believed that the WKB approximation to quantum barrier penetration is described in the path-integral formalism by a saddle-point approximation based on an expansion about an imaginary-time semiclassical path. This article examines the relationship between tunneling amplitudes and imaginary-time paths. It is shown, using a simple example, that for some tunneling amplitudes the dominant semiclassical path cannot be chosen to have purely imaginary time if all other variables are chosen to be real.