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Journal of Mathematical Physics

The quantum N-body problem

W. Hunziker, Israel Michael Sigal

Published Jun 1, 2000• 147 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This selective review is written as an introduction to the mathematical theory of the Schrödinger equation for N particles. Characteristic for these systems are the cluster properties of the potential in configuration space, which are expressed in a simple geometric language. The methods developed over the last 40 years to deal with this primary aspect are described by giving full proofs of a number of basic and by now classical results. The central theme is the interplay between the spectral theory of N-body Hamiltonians and the space–time and phase-space analysis of bound states and scattering states.

DOI
10.1063/1.533319

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This selective review is written as an introduction to the mathematical theory of the Schrödinger equation for N particles. Characteristic for these systems are the cluster properties of the potential in configuration space, which are expressed in a simple geometric language. The methods developed over the last 40 years to deal with this primary aspect are described by giving full proofs of a number of basic and by now classical results. The central theme is the interplay between the spectral theory of N-body Hamiltonians and the space–time and phase-space analysis of bound states and scattering states.
Quantum mechanics and the theory of operators on Hilbert space have been deeply linked since their beginnings in the early twentieth century. States of a quantum system correspond to certain elements of the configuration space and observables correspond to certain operators on the space. This book is a brief, but self-contained, introduction to the mathematical methods of quantum mechanics, with a view towards applications to Schrodinger operators. Part 1 of the book is a concise introduction to the spectral theory of unbounded operators. Only those topics that will be needed for later applications are covered. The spectral theorem is a central topic in this approach and is introduced at an early stage. Part 2 starts with the free Schrodinger equation and computes the free resolvent and time evolution. Position, momentum, and angular momentum are discussed via algebraic methods. Various mathematical methods are developed, which are then used to compute the spectrum of the hydrogen atom. Further topics include the nondegeneracy of the ground state, spectra of atoms, and scattering theory. This book serves as a self-contained introduction to spectral theory of unbounded operators in Hilbert space with full proofs and minimal prerequisites: Only a solid knowledge of advanced calculus and a one-semester introduction to complex analysis are required. In particular, no functional analysis and no Lebesgue integration theory are assumed. It develops the mathematical tools necessary to prove some key results in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. Mathematical Methods in Quantum Mechanics is intended for beginning graduate students in both mathematics and physics and provides a solid foundation for reading more advanced books and current research literature. This new edition has additions and improvements throughout the book to make the presentation more student friendly.
We give a full and self contained account of the basic results in N-body scattering theory which emerged over the last ten years: The existence and completeness of scattering states for potentials decreasing like r-μ, [Formula: see text]. Our approach is a synthesis of earlier work and of new ideas. Global conditions on the potentials are imposed only to define the dynamics. Asymptotic completeness is derived from the fact that the mean square diameter of the system diverges like t2 as t → ±∞ for any orbit ψt which is separated in energy from thresholds and eigenvalues (a generalized version of Mourre's theorem involving only the tails of the potentials at large distances). We introduce new propagation observables which considerably simplify the phase–space analysis. As a topic of general interest we describe a method of commutator expansions.
This chapter presents a detailed examination of a number of relatively simple problems pertaining to the scattering and bound states of two structureless particles interacting through a central field. It describes the spectrum of the angular momentum operators by a method that does not refer at all to the structure of the system. The spherical harmonics are the eigenfunctions appropriate to a single particle that can be described by the three classical degrees of freedom, or for a pair of such particles in their center-of-mass frame. The formulation of collision theory that is based on the one-body Schrodinger equation with a Hermitian interaction. The chapter introduces and discusses the observables pertaining to the two-body problem and explores the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of these observables. Since the degeneracies of the energy spectrum are a consequence of the symmetries of the Hamiltonian, they can be determined experimentally by destroying this symmetry.
The present paper is devoted to the study of the few–body quantum mechanical problem with singular finite rank cluster interactions. The corresponding Hamiltonians play an important role in mathematical physics, since few body Hamiltonians with more regular interactions present considerable difficulties which make impossible a detailed analytic study [ 13 ]. Also a numerical study of such Hamiltonians using Faddeev equations present very hard problems, since the interaction between the particles does not vanish at large distances. On the other hand few-body problems with singular cluster interaction are useful and intensively studied in statistical physics, since the corresponding Hamiltonians can be analyzed in detail even if the number of particles is very large. Models describing one dimensional particles are of particular interest, since the eigenfunctions of the many body Hamiltonians can often be calculated using Bethe Ansatz [ 14 ]. In fact the well-known Yang-Baxter equation was first written in connection with the study of system of several one-dimensional particles with pairwise delta interactions. Similar methods were used in atomic physics to study collisions of several particles [ 12 ] (in three dimensions). Few-body systems in applications are usually investigated by combining the classical description of the dynamics of heavy atoms with the quantum description of the dynamics of electrons and other light particles. The first attempt to construct a three body Hamiltonian describing three quantum particles in R 3 interacting through pairwise delta functional potentials is due to G.V. Skorniakov and K.A.Ter-Martirosian [ 29 ]. R.A.Minlos and L.D.Faddeev proved that the corresponding Hamiltonian is not bounded from below and therefore cannot be used in 278 the originally intended physical applications [ 24 , 25 ]. The operator was defined using the method of self–adjoint perturbations used by F.A.Berezin and L.D.Faddeev for investigating Schödinger operators with delta potential in R 3 [ 10 ]. Almost three decades later semibounded three-body operators in dimension three with generalized two-body interactions were constructed by extending the standard Hilbert space of square integrable functions in R 9 [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 30 ]. The most interesting model considered used the theory of generalized extensions suggested by B.Pavlov [ 7 , 26 ]. Different aspects of these models were analyzed recently [ 8 , 23 , 20 ]. A general approach to these operators is described in [ 7 , 22 ]. Let us mention that a realization of a many-body lower bounded Hamiltonian with point interactions for particles in R 3 has been obtained in the original Hilbert space by using the theory of Dirichlet forms [ 2 ]. The few-body systems of two dimensional particles with two-body interactions was studied in [ 11 ], where it was proven that the corresponding Hamiltonian is semibounded.
Abstract Several techniques for obtaining the eigenspectrum and scattering properties of one- and two-body quantum systems are presented. More unusual topics, such as solving the Schrödinger equation in momentum space or implementing relativistic kinematics, are also addressed. A novel quantum Monte Carlo technique that leverages the similarity between path integrals and random walks is developed. An exploration of the method for simple problems is followed by a survey of methods to obtain ground state matrix elements. A review of scattering theory follows. The momentum space T-matrix formalism for scattering is introduced and an efficient numerical method for solving the relevant equations is presented. Finally, the method is extended to the coupled channel scattering problem.
This research reviewed in this habilitation thesis touches upon a variety of topics, grouped into six separate chapters. The unifying theme of all this work is a connection to the theory of many-body quantum systems. In some cases, the mathematical results are of direct relevance to such systems, like NNN-body systems or particle-field systems. In others, the connection lies in the fact that the studied equations are used as effective descriptions of many-body systems, for example in the mean-field approximation.