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Journal of Physics B Atomic and Molecular Physics

Correspondence identities: I

A Norcliffe, Ian Colin Percival

Published Sep 1, 1968• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The complete quantum-dynamical solutions for a free particle moving in one dimension and for a free particle moving on a ring are obtained in terms of classical path sums. The propagators and Green operator kernels, and, in particular, the kernel of the spectral operator I E = δ( E - H ) are expressed explicitly in this way. Relations between quantum and classical mechanics which hold for low quantum numbers and relatively small values of the classical action are discussed. They are the correspondence identities.

DOI
10.1088/0022-3700/1/5/303

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The complete quantum-dynamical solutions for a free particle moving in one dimension and for a free particle moving on a ring are obtained in terms of classical path sums. The propagators and Green operator kernels, and, in particular, the kernel of the spectral operator I E = δ( E - H ) are expressed explicitly in this way. Relations between quantum and classical mechanics which hold for low quantum numbers and relatively small values of the classical action are discussed. They are the correspondence identities.
For Pt. IV see abstr. A41769 of 1969. The classical and quantal problem of a charged particle moving in an attractive Coulomb potential with total energy zero is considered. A complete correspondence identity is obtained by expressing the kernel of the quantum-mechanical spectral operator IE= delta (E-H) exactly in terms of the classical action function in momentum representation. Use is made of the dynamical symmetry properties exhibited by both the classical and quantal problems, and a path-integral method of evaluating the spectral operator kernel is also presented.
We begin with a presentation of the Schwinger variational principle in quantum mechanics. In the second part, after a re-assessment of the problem of motion in quantum mechanics, it is shown that the Green kernel, which represents the probability amplitude of finding a particle in space at a given time, once its location at another time is known, can be represented by a sum over ‘space–time paths’. According to this interpretation, one integrates the exponential of i times the classical action divided by ħ, with a (formal) measure over all space–time paths matching the initial location x i at time t i and the final location x f at time t f . Such a way of evaluating the Green kernel is applied to any quadratic Lagrangian for a generic quantum system including, in particular, the harmonic oscillator and the free particle. Lastly, we outline a formalism which involves ordinary functions of commuting variables, and exactly reproduces ordinary quantum mechanics. It works with a phase space endowed with commuting coordinates, so that one is dealing with quantum mechanics in phase space. The Schwinger formulation of quantum dynamics In both the Schrödinger formulation in terms of wave functions (with associated state vectors) and the Heisenberg formulation in terms of noncommuting matrices (with corresponding linear operators) the dynamical evolution is specified in terms of the Hamiltonian. This has motivated our presentation of classical dynamics, but is in marked contrast with the view according to which the Lagrangian and the action specify the dynamics. Hamilton's principle is formulated in terms of the action, the time integral of the Lagrangian.
Abstract The quantum mechanical kernel K(q″,t″; q′,t′) in Feynman's form of a sum over paths is evaluated by means of the canonical transformation to the system Q, P for which the Hamiltonian vanishes identically. The kernel is found to be completely determined by the classical paths, and is given by The sum is over all classical paths leading from q′ at t′ to q″ at t′. S(q″, P, t′; q′, P, t′) is the classical action along the classical path characterized by the constant momentum P.
A detailed framework for a new formalism of phase-space path integral is presented, the outline of the theory of which has been reported elsewhere [K. Takatsuka, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 503 (1988)]. This path integral is described in terms of a phase-space distribution function, which was proposed earlier by the present author under the name of the dynamical characteristic function (DCF). The DCF is characterized by two independent wave functions and with two phase spaces. In the present paper, we extend the DCF by utilizing the Feynman kernel in place of the two independent wave functions. This is called the identity DCF. The dynamics of the DCF for general wave packets is reduced to that of the identity DCF. Some characteristics of the identity DCF are presented. For example, the quantum-mechanical time-evolution operator is represented in terms of the identity DCF and of a complete set of quantum q (coordinate) and p (momentum) operators. A semiclassical theory for the identity DCF is also developed, its primary aim being the study of heavy-particle dynamics such as molecular collisions.It is shown that the propagation of the identity DCF is represented by classical trajectories, each of which is associated with an amplitude factor and with the action integral as the quantum phase factor. This amplitude factor is free from singularity, unlike the primitive semiclassical expression of the Feynman kernel, which is well known to diverge at caustics. The physical significance of the identity DCF is analyzed in the context of chaotic dynamics. In particular, it is shown that its amplitude factor is an explicit function of the eigenvalues of a Jacobian matrix [\ensuremath{\partial}(qf{\mathit{q}}_{\mathit{f}}qf​,pf{\mathit{p}}_{\mathit{f}}pf​)/\ensuremath{\partial}(qi{\mathit{q}}_{\mathit{i}}qi​,pi{\mathit{p}}_{\mathit{i}}pi​)], where (qi{\mathit{q}}_{\mathit{i}}qi​,p){\mathit{p}}_{)}p)​ and (qf{q}_{f}qf​,pf{p}_{f}pf​) are the initial and final points, respectively, of a classical trajectory. These eigenvalues are well known in the study of the classical chaos of Hamilton systems and have been used to construct a measure of the linear (and local) stability of an orbit, the Liapounov characteristic exponents, and so on. Further, if the identity DCF is applied to a periodic orbit, the amplitude factor becomes equivalent to the square root of the determinant of a matrix, which is the so-called monodromy matrix minus the unit matrix. This matrix is one of the standard quantities used in bifurcation theory to investigate the stability of fixed points. In fact, the amplitude factor is closely related to the so-called residue, which was proposed by Greene [J. Math. Phys. 20, 1183 (1979)] in order to predict the occurrence of global chaos in classical systems. It is emphasized that all these classical quantities arise naturally in our representation of quantum mechanics.
A particle in a one-dimensional \ensuremath{\delta}-function potential possesses both discrete and continuum solutions. The configuration-space Green's function and propagator for this problem are derived by explicit summation over the spectrum of eigenstates. The momentum-space Green's function is also obtained. The propagator does not contain the classical action function in any simple way, in contrast to the usual structure in Feynman's path-integral formalism. Various analogies between the \ensuremath{\delta}-function and Coulomb problems are discussed.
Abstract The essence of the path integral method in quantum physics can be expressed in terms of two relations between unitary propagators, describing perturbations of the underlying system. They inherit the causal structure of the theory and its invariance properties under variations of the action. These relations determine a dynamical algebra of bounded operators which encodes all properties of the corresponding quantum theory. This novel approach is applied to non-relativistic particles, where quantum mechanics emerges from it. The method works also in interacting quantum field theories and sheds new light on the foundations of quantum physics.