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American Journal of Physics

Projection operator approach to time-independent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics

Demin Yao, Jicong Shi

Published Mar 1, 2000• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The time-independent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics is formulated using projection operator techniques. The determination of the perturbed eigenvalue can be decoupled from that of the perturbed eigenstate. Both the Brillouin–Wigner theory and the Rayleigh–Schrödinger theory come out straightforwardly. Both degenerate and nondegenerate cases can be treated in a unified way for arbitrarily high order perturbations.

DOI
10.1119/1.19419

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The time-independent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics is formulated using projection operator techniques. The determination of the perturbed eigenvalue can be decoupled from that of the perturbed eigenstate. Both the Brillouin–Wigner theory and the Rayleigh–Schrödinger theory come out straightforwardly. Both degenerate and nondegenerate cases can be treated in a unified way for arbitrarily high order perturbations.
A perturbation theory is presented which is suitable for the treatment of strong or resonant interactions in quantum systems described by time-independent Hamiltonians. The formulation is exact for finite-level systems and encompasses both nondegenerate and degenerate problems. The derivation is based on the partitioning of the levelshift operator, an operator which occurs naturally through the use of projection operators. The formulation is applied to the eigenvalue problem and to the calculation of the transition amplitude between states of the unperturbed system induced by a time-independent perturbation. The results are expressed in terms of Green's functions involving continued fractions which are truncated for finite-level systems.
There are few potentials V (r) for which the Schrödinger equation is exactly solvable. We must therefore develop approximation techniques to obtain the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for potentials that do not lead to exactly soluble equations. One of these methods is the perturbation theory, which was developed both for time independent and time dependent phenomena. We will discuss the time independent perturbation theory. The formulation of the time independent perturbation theory is different for nondegenerate and degenerate states.
Abstract We derive the formulas for the energy and wavefunction of the time-independent Schrödinger equation with perturbation in a compact form. Unlike the conventional approaches based on Rayleigh–Schrödinger or Brillouin–Wigner perturbation theories, we employ a recently developed approach of matrix-valued Lagrange multipliers that regularizes an eigenproblem. The Lagrange-multiplier regularization makes the characteristic matrix for an eigenproblem invertible. After applying the constraint equation to recover the original equation, we find the solutions of the energy and wavefunction consistent with the conventional approaches. This formalism does not rely on an iterative way and the order-by-order corrections are easily obtained by taking the Taylor expansion. The Lagrange-multiplier regularization formalism for perturbation theory presented in this paper is completely new and can be extended to the degenerate perturbation theory in a straightforward manner. We expect that this new formalism is also pedagogically useful to give insights on the perturbation theory in quantum mechanics.
Throughout our discussion of the general principles of quantum mechanics we have emphasized the importance of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the operators representing physical quantities. However, we have seen that solving the basic eigenvalue equations determining these is often not straightforward. In the early chapters discussing the energy eigenvalue equation (or time-independent Schro¨dinger equation) for example, we found that this could often not be solved exactly and that, even when a solution was possible, it frequently required considerable mathematical analysis. Because of this, methods have been developed to obtain approximate solutions to eigenvalue equations. One of the most important of such techniques is known as time-independent perturbation theory and will be the first method to be discussed in the present chapter. Another, known as the variational principle, will be discussed later. We shall confine our discussion to the timeindependent Schro¨dinger equation, but generalization to other eigenvalue equations is quite straightforward. We shall mainly use the wave function representation, but we shall restate some of the important results in Dirac notation so that they can be readily transformed to a matrix representation if desired.
A formulation of Schr\"odinger perturbation theory is developed that gives a unified treatment of non-degenerate and degenerate cases, is unique, and has a nonzero radius of convergence under very general conditions. Two alternative procedures are given for finding perturbed eigenvectors, one of which is simpler for the nondegenerate case or for small finite degeneracy, the other simpler for infinite or large finite degeneracy. The low-order terms in the perturbation expansions of quantities used in applications are given. The perturbation theory formulated in this paper has the following advantages over the conventional Schr\"odinger and Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theories: (i) When the convergence criterion is satisfied, bounds on the error made in replacing an appropriate infinite perturbation series by its first nnn terms can be obtained. (ii) For the case of degeneracy, the conventional Schr\"odinger perturbation theory can break down under conditions to which the convergence of the perturbation theory developed in this paper are insensitive. (iii) There is no implicit dependence on the eigenvalue, such as appears in the Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theory. (iv) For the case of degeneracy, statistical information about the distribution of certain eigenvalues can be obtained without finding the individual eigenvalues. (v) The theory is applicable to a wider class of problems than the conventional Schr\"odinger and Brillouin-Wigner perturbation theories.