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American Journal of Physics

Note on the Inequivalence of Classical and Quantum Hamiltonians

Frederick James Kennedy, Edward H. Kerner

Published Jun 1, 1965• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

By working directly from Newtonian equations of motion and representing acceleration ẍ as [(x,H), H], families of Hamiltonians may be constructed which are functions of the energy and which, while describing the same classical motions, are not connected by canonical transformations. One dimensional examples are given, and the formal rules of quantization executed when H is (energy)12 to show that the quantum motion does not come out right. The reason is that the commutation rule (x,p) = iħ does not have universal standing; quantum theory in employing this rule is apparently requiring not merely that H be a generator of motion, but also that it be a very particular one, viz., the energy when the system is conservative.

DOI
10.1119/1.1971690

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By working directly from Newtonian equations of motion and representing acceleration ẍ as [(x,H), H], families of Hamiltonians may be constructed which are functions of the energy and which, while describing the same classical motions, are not connected by canonical transformations. One dimensional examples are given, and the formal rules of quantization executed when H is (energy)12 to show that the quantum motion does not come out right. The reason is that the commutation rule (x,p) = iħ does not have universal standing; quantum theory in employing this rule is apparently requiring not merely that H be a generator of motion, but also that it be a very particular one, viz., the energy when the system is conservative.
It is well known that to quantize any dynamical system it is necessary for a generator of the classical motion to exist in the form of a Hamiltonian function. It is shown, by using the example of a damped harmonic oscillator, that a particular class of inequivalent classical Hamiltonians exist which make quantization of the system ambiguous. Hence it is conclued that it is not sufficient for the Hamiltonian to merely generate the motion, but it must also be necessarily related via a canonical transformation to the total energy of the system.
One classical theory, as determined by an equation of motion or set of classical trajectories, can correspond to many unitarily {\em in}equivalent quantum theories upon canonical quantization. This arises from a remarkable ambiguity, not previously investigated, in the construction of the classical (and hence the quantized) Hamiltonian or Lagrangian. This ambiguity is illustrated for systems with one degree of freedom: An arbitrary function of the constants of motion can be introduced into this construction. For example, the nonrelativistic and relativistic free particles follow identical classical trajectories, but the Hamiltonians or Lagrangians, and the canonically quantized versions of these descriptions, are inequivalent. Inequivalent descriptions of other systems, such as the harmonic oscillator, are also readily obtained.
Noncanonical quantization schemes have been proposed in quantum physics long time ago. Recalling some of them I associate these investigations to the quantum mechanical im-plications of the canonically inequivalent Hamilton formula-tions of classical Newtonian dynamics. As the simplest illus-tration of such alternative Hamiltonian descriptions I consider one dimensional system of two particles interacting harmoni-cally. Description of the motion of their center of mass is stan-dard and guarantees the Galilean covariance but the internal motion is described as a noncanonical oscillator for which the Hamiltonian and the total energy are not related by a simple proportionality. Alternative Hamiltonians lead to alternative Poisson structures which may be considered as classical ana-logues of the noncanonical quantum commutation rules. Gen-Concepts of Physics, Vol. I (2004) 11 erated alternative quantizations are consistent with the same Heisenberg equations of motion, i.e., they satisfy the Wigner principle of quantization. For the one dimensional harmonic oscillator the simplest noncanonical algebraic description is given in terms of the Lie algebra so(p, q), p+ q = 3. In such a case the Hamiltonian is still a linear function while the energy is a quadratic polynomial of the main quantum number. This leads to nonstandard termodynamical properties obeyed by such a noncanonical oscillator. The 3-dimensional harmonic oscillator also has a noncanonical description given in terms of the simple Lie algebra, so(p, q), p+ q = 5 in the case under consideration. The most important physical consequence of such a description is the noncommutativity of the coordinate operators, interpreted to be an implication of the noncommu-tative geometry of the underlying spacetime.
The Wigner problem, i.e. the investigation of general quantum mechanical commutation relations consistent with the Heisenberg evolution equations of a given shape, is studied. We follow a recently proposed generalization of this idea within which the classical analogy is postulated only for the shape of the time evolution equations and not for a Hamiltonian itself. This links our investigation to the problem of alternative Hamiltonians of classical mechanics and to canonically inequivalent phase-space descriptions of physical systems governed by the same Newton equations of motion. Warned that the time evolution and the other symmetry generators may be given ambiguously even in the formalism of classical mechanics, we do not a priori assume the shape of their quantum analogues. Instead we only require that the set of basic algebraic relations, which quantum mechanical observables are to obey, has a Lie algebra structure. Such a requirement appears to be sufficient to find solutions for simple oscillator-like dynamics. New algebras of quantum mechanical observables are not constructed as a linear envelope of the Heisenberg algebra, and their representations reflect physical results unexpected in the framework of the canonical approach. We illustrate our approach in detail for the example of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator using the representation of the generalized coherent states.
From the equation of motion and the canonical commutation relation for the position of a particle and its conjugate momentum, different first integrals of motion can be constructed. In addition to the proper Hamiltonian, there are other operators that can be considered as the generators of motion for the position operator (q-equivalent Hamiltonians). All of these operators have the same classical limit for the probability density of the coordinate of the particle, and many of them are symmetric and self-adjoint operators or have self-adjoint extensions. However, they do not satisfy the Heisenberg rule of quantization, and lead to incorrect commutation relations for velocity and position operators. Therefore, it is concluded that the energy first integral and the potential, rather than the equation of motion and the force law, are the physically significant operators in quantum mechanics.