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Optics and Photonics News

Erwin Schrödinger’s Path to Wave Mechanics

Barry R. Masters

Published Feb 1, 2014• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In 1926, Schrödinger invoked Hamilton’s optical-mechanical analogy that related ray optics and particle mechanics: His invention of wave mechanics related to particle mechanics as wave optics related to ray optics.
DOI
10.1364/opn.25.2.000032

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In 1926, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger derived an equation of waves from the Hamilton variational principle inspired by the analogy between Mechanics and Optics. This equation explained much of quantum phenomenology was known at that time. Physical laws must be invariant under certain symmetries, represented by the transformations of the mathematical object that define these laws. In particular in quantum mechanics one can ask for the transformations of states and observables. These transformations must fulfill what constitutes the essence of the so-called Wigner's theorem, that is, that the transformed observables must possess the same possible sets of eigenvalues as the old ones and that the transformations of the states must give the same probabilities. The temporal evolution of the states must always be given by unit operators that conserve scalar products.
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Abstract This chapter explores Schrödinger’s introduction of wave mechanics. After briefly covering Schrödinger’s earlier work, it turns to the investigations that led him to write a four-part paper in 1926 introducing and applying wave mechanics. The chapter provides a detailed analysis of these four papers, in which the analogy of the new theory to the Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of classical mechanics plays a central role, as well as the paper written in between the second and the third installment on the relation between wave and matrix mechanics. The chapter also discusses Schr "odinger’s original interpretation of his wave functions and the reception of his theory by the physics community.
Let us return from optics to mechanics and explore the analogy to its fullest extent. In optics the old system of mechanics corresponds to intellectually operating with isolated mutually independent light rays. The new undulatory mechanics corresponds to the wave theory of light . Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel lecture , 1933 In this chapter we shall see that electromagnetic waves and electrons feature a number of common properties under conditions of spatial confinement. Simple and familiar problems from introductory quantum mechanics and textbook wave optics are recalled in this chapter to emphasize the basic features of waves in spatially inhomogeneous media. Herewith we make a first step towards understanding the properties of electrons and electromagnetic waves in nanostructures and notice that these properties in many instances are counterparts. Different formulas and statements of this chapter can be found in handbooks on quantum mechanics and wave optics. A few textbooks on quantum mechanics do consider analogies of propagation and reflection phenomena in wave optics with those in wave mechanics. Isomorphism of the Schrödinger and Helmholtz equations In Chapter 2 we discussed that an electron in quantum mechanics is described by the wave function, the square of its absolute value giving the probability of finding an electron at a specific point in space. This function satisfies the Schrödinger equation (2.56) which is the second-order differential equation with respect to space and the first-order differential equation with respect to time.
It was Erwin Schrodinger who, in 1925, discovered an appropriate form of wave equation, making use of some deep formal analogies between optics and classical particle mechanics that had been evolved in the nineteenth century by W. R. Hamilton and others. There is all the accumulated evidence that the Schrodinger equations work; they provide the basis for a correct analysis of all kinds of molecular, atomic, and nuclear systems. The theoretical basis for the existence of states of discrete energies emerges more or less directly from the wave-particle duality; one of the most familiar features of classical wave behavior is that of standing waves. The quantum amplitudes for a particle in a bound state can be normalized. In order to make the statistical interpretation of the wave function more precise, we need to use the quantitative ideas of probability distributions.
In this paper, we revise the main aspects of the ‘Hamiltonian analogy’: the fact that optical paths are completely analogous to mechanical trajectories. We follow Schrödinger's original idea and go beyond this analogy by changing over from the Hamilton's principal function S to the wavefunction Ψ. We thus travel from classical to quantum mechanics using optics as a guide. Unfortunately, and despite its mathematical beauty and simplicity, the connection between classical and quantum mechanics through optics is nowadays hardly known and mostly ignored in university education. The present work tries to fill this gap.