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Journal of Mathematical Physics

Quantum mechanics of the anharmonic oscillator

Francis R. Halpern

Published Feb 1, 1973• 34 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The dependence of the energy levels and the value of the matrix elements of the momentum and position operators of a quantum anharmonic oscillator are studied as functions of the quantum number and the strength of the anharmonic term. The principal technique employed is the construction of a canonical transformation.
DOI
10.1063/1.1666299

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For an anharmonic oscillator, it follows from the number of zeros of the exact wave functions as functions of the quantum number nnn that the matrix elements $〈n|x|{n}^{\ensuremath{'}}〉$ and $〈n|p|{n}^{\ensuremath{'}}〉$ should be rapidly decreasing functions of $|n\ensuremath{-}{n}^{\ensuremath{'}}|$. Matrix elements of polynomials in xxx and ppp should therefore be well approximated by a finite number of terms in their sum-rule decomposition. From the matrix elements of the equations of motion for xxx and for ppp and of the commutator ∣x,p∣|x,p|∣x,p∣, one thereby obtains closed sets of nonlinear algebraic equations to characterize subspaces of the Hilbert space of exact eigenfunctions. The approximations are also derived from a novel variational principle, and numerous variant approximation schemes are suggested. Essentially exact numerical results are obtained and compared with previous work. The broad applicability of the techniques is emphasized.
The paper introduces a simple quantum model to calculate in a general way allowed frequencies and energy levels of the anharmonic oscillator. The theoretical basis of the approach has been introduced in two early papers aimed to infer the properties of quantum systems exploiting the uncertainty principle only. For clarity the anharmonic oscillator is described having in mind the lattice oscillations of atoms/ions, yet quantum formalism of the model and approach have general character and can be extended to any oscillating system. The results show that the harmonic energy levels split into a complex system of energy levels dependent upon the number of anharmonic terms that characterize the oscillator.
Matrix mechanic methods are used to find approximate equations and solutions for quantum anharmonic oscillator problems. A series of hypotheses are introduced that truncate and partially decouple the infinite set of coupled equations that specify the problem in the matrix mechanics formulation. The dependent variables or unknowns in these equations are the matrix elements of the coordinate and momentum operators. The independent variables are the matrix indices and coupling strengths. The equations themselves specify that the off diagonal matrix elements of the Hamiltonian and the commutators expressed in terms of the unknowns vanish and that the diagonal commutator matrix elements vanish except for canonical pairs in which case they are equal to −ih/. The truncation and decoupling hypotheses offer an orderly procedure for dealing approximately with the vast array of equations of the exact problems. Only the leading behavior of the coordinate and momentum operator matrix elements is found in terms of the matrix indices and coupling parameters. Although general techniques are presented to find the equations, the solutions discussed and the applications are brief extensions of problems that have already been treated.
The time evolution of a quantum single-quartic anharmonic oscillator is considered. The study is carried on in operational form by use of the raising and lowering operators of the oscillator. The equation of motion is solved by application of a new integration method based on iteration techniques, and the rigorous solutions that describe the time development of the displacement and momentum operators of the oscillator are obtained. These operators are presented as a Laplace transform and a subsequent inverse Laplace transform of suitable functionals. Finally, the results are employed to describe the time evolution of a quasiclassical anharmonic oscillator.
This is an investigation of the energy levels and wavefunctions of an anharmonic oscillator characterised by the potential 1/2 (omega 2 q 2 + lambda q 4 ). As a lowest-order approximation an extremely simple formula for energy levels, E i (0) = (i + 1/2)1/4(3/alpha i + alpha i ), is derived (i being the quantum number of the energy level), which covers any (lambda, i). alpha i is the real positive root of a cubic equation: y i alpha i 3 + alpha i 2 - 1 = 0, with y i = 6lambda(2i 2 + 2i + 1)/(2i+1). This formula reproduces the exact energy levels within an error of about 1% for any ( lambda ,i) (the worst case is 2% for i = 0, lambda to infinity). Systematically higher orders of this perturbation theory are developed, which contains the 'usual' perturbation theory for the limiting case of small lambda , but this perturbation theory is valid for any (i, lambda). The second-order perturbation theory reduces the errors of our lowest-order results by a factor of about 1/5 in general. Various ranges (large, intermediate, small) of (i, lambda ) are investigated and compared with the exact values obtained by the Montroll group (1975, 1978). For i = 0, 1, even the fourth-order perturbation calculation can be elaborated explicitly, which reduces the error to about 0.01% for any lambda . For small lambda it gives correct numerical coefficients up to lambda 4 terms, as it should.