In a previous paper we used the method of finite elements to formulate consistent, unitary, discrete-time quantum-mechanical systems having one degree of freedom. In this paper we extend the treatment to systems having two degrees of freedom. The proof of consistency is more delicate: It is nontrivial to show that there are no operator-ordering problems and that independent degrees of freedom remain independent at subsequent lattice sites. The construction of purely bosonic lattice systems is a straightforward application of the finite-element prescription. However, it is surprising that quantum-mechanical systems having interacting fermions and bosons are only unitary if the interaction is modified on the lattice by a term which vanishes as the lattice spacing approaches zero. The modified interaction is determined by an interesting nonlinear condition. In all cases we give an explicit formula for the lattice transfer operator.
In a previous paper we used the method of finite elements to formulate consistent, unitary, discrete-time quantum-mechanical systems having one degree of freedom. In this paper we extend the treatment to systems having two degrees of freedom. The proof of consistency is more delicate: It is nontrivial to show that there are no operator-ordering problems and that independent degrees of freedom remain independent at subsequent lattice sites. The construction of purely bosonic lattice systems is a straightforward application of the finite-element prescription. However, it is surprising that quantum-mechanical systems having interacting fermions and bosons are only unitary if the interaction is modified on the lattice by a term which vanishes as the lattice spacing approaches zero. The modified interaction is determined by an interesting nonlinear condition. In all cases we give an explicit formula for the lattice transfer operator.
The simplest possible quantum degree of freedom has only two discrete possible values and is called an Ising spin. This could be a spin system having only two possible values, namely “up” or “down,” or this could be a quantum particle that can occupy only two possible positions. To simplify the problem to its bare essentials, a two-state system is studied in zero-dimension space and in Euclidean time; the two-state system occupies a single point and, as it evolves in time, it can point either up or down. Furthermore, time evolution is simplified by discretizing time into a finite time lattice. The two-state degree of freedom in zero-dimension space propagating on a time lattice is called the Ising model. The one-dimensional Ising model is a toy model that is studied to develop the essential ideas of quantum mechanics. The concepts of state space, Hamiltonian, evolution kernel, and path integration have a discrete and simple representation in the Ising model. The Ising model can be viewed as a statistical mechanical system in thermal equilibrium, with the Ising spins occupying a one-dimensional space lattice, and hence is called the one-dimensional Ising model. The Ising model can be defined on higher dimensional lattices and forms one of the bedrocks of theoretical statistical mechanics. In Sections 8.1 to 8.5 the degree of freedom, state space, Hamiltonian, path integral and correlator for the Ising model are discussed. In Section 8.6, the technique of spin decimation is illustrated using an Ising model with coupling depending on the lattice site.
The finite-element (collocation) method enables us to construct discrete time-lattice quantum systems that accurately approximate continuum quantum systems. The discrete quantum systems so generated are fully consistent quantum-mechanical systems in their own right. This paper gives a comprehensive treatment of such quantum systems. We examine various finite-element schemes, construct the effective lattice Hamiltonian, and calculate eigenvalues. Numerical results are extremely easy to obtain and are very accurate.
We study the application of the "leapfrog" method of finite differencing to the approximate solution of operator equations of motion in quantum theory. We show that, for a wide class of linear and nonlinear systems, the leapfrog differencing scheme is exactly unitary. The method is sufficiently general to apply to many-particle systems with arbitrary potential forces and to lattice-regulated nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models and non-Abelian gauge theories. In contrast to the recent proposal of Bender and Sharp (which is based on the finite-elements method) our approach is explicit rather than implicit and, in the case of lattice-regulated field theories, has a lattice analog of microcausality. For systems with finitely many degrees of freedom and self-adjoint Hamiltonians, we show that our approximate solutions converge to the exact solutions in the limit in which the time step tends to zero.
Introduction In many cases in physics, one has to deal simultaneously with collective and single-particle excitations of the system. The collective excitations are usually bosonic in nature while the single-particle excitations are often fermionic. One is therefore led to consider a system which includes bosons and fermions. In this book we discuss applications of a general algebraic theory of mixed Bose- Fermi systems to atomic nuclei. The collective degrees of freedom here can be described in terms of a system of interacting bosons as discussed in a previous book (Iachello and Arima, 1987), henceforth referred to as Volume 1. The single-particle degrees of freedom represent the motion of individual nucleons in the average nuclear field. They are described in terms of a system of interacting fermions. The coupling of fermions and bosons leads to the interacting boson-fermion model which has been used extensively in recent years to discuss the properties of nuclei with an odd number of nucleons. The interacting boson-fermion model was introduced by Arima and one of us in 1975 (Arima and Iachello, 1975). It was subsequently expanded by Iachello and Scholten (1979) and cast into a form more readily amenable to calculations. As in the corresponding case of even-mass systems, the algebra of creation and annihilation operators can be realized in several ways. One of these is the Hoistein-Primakoff realization which leads to a slightly different version of the interacting boson-fermion model called the truncated quadrupole phonon-fermion model (Paar, 1980; Paar and Brant, 1981), based on the boson realization introduced by Janssen, Jolos and Donau in 1974 and discussed in Sect. 1.4.6 of Volume 1.
It is shown that application of the time-dependent variational principle to trial wave functions of a particular form results in a description of the quantum system as a classical system consisting of two mutually interacting parts: the ordinary classical analog of the quantum system and a (generally finite) number of additional degrees of freedom. This holds out the prospect of simulating quantum dynamics by coupling the corresponding classical system to additional degrees of freedom, and it is pointed out that such calculations have, in effect, already been performed. Since the trial wave functions that qualify for this treatment may be arbitrarily accurate, there is no limitation to the accuracy of the resulting classical description. In a particular case, the canonical coordinates and momenta for all degrees of freedom of the overall classical system are identified and investigated. In general, certain parameters appearing in the trial wave functions treated in this work may become redundant at certain times, leading to singularities in the Hamiltonian equations of motion. It is shown, however, that in certain such cases, a classical formalism for the quantum dynamics remains valid if the Hamiltonian function is suitably modified. Calculations applying the present Hamiltonian formalism are carried out that demonstrate that it has better convergence properties than an alternative, nonvariational, Hamiltonian technique suggested by previous work. These numerical studies also suggest that the observed spreading of wave packets and development of complicated structure in wave functions may be interpreted classically in terms of energy transfer among the various degrees of freedom in the overall classical system.
We discuss the construction of ideal space seniority images of single fermion operators which proceeds via the generalized Dyson mapping and a subsequent similarity transformation. Particular attention is paid to the implications of a consistent treatment of single-particle and collective degrees of freedom. The results are compared with expressions for the mapped single fermion operators previously obtained, respectively, within the Otsuka-Arima-Iachello framework and by using the prescriptions of nuclear field theory. We point out certain inconsistencies in existing constructions of interacting-boson-fermion model operators in general and the interacting-boson-fermion model quadrupole operator in particular.