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American Journal of Physics

Note on Perturbation Theory

Saul T. Epstein

Published Dec 1, 1954• 70 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Perturbation theory is derived in such a way that the wave function renormalization terms appear automatically. The derivation is based on the Feynman theorem for the rate of change of an eigenvalue with respect to a parameter, and a corresponding theorem for the rate of change of an eigenfunction.
DOI
10.1119/1.1933856

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We now consider systems for which the Hamiltonian contains time-dependent interaction terms. In such cases we cannot reduce the time-dependent Schro¨dinger equation to an eigenvalue equation. However, if the time-dependent terms can be regarded as small perturbations, we can develop a form of perturbation theory that can be used to calculate the effects of time-dependent terms. Consider a system for which the Hamiltonian may be written as the sum of a dominant unperturbed part Hˆ0 and a small perturbation Hˆ ′ as Hˆ = Hˆ0 + λHˆ ′(t) , (10.1.1) where the unperturbed Hamiltonian Hˆ0 is independent of time, whereas the perturbation Hˆ ′ may depend on time. The parameter 0 < λ < 1 has been introduced to keep track of various orders of approximations as in the case of time-independent perturbation theory discussed in Chapter 8. The basic idea is that a small perturbation to the Hamiltonian will produce a small change in the wave function. For a time-dependent perturbation, this change means that a system, initially in a particular eigenstate of Hˆ0, will find itself in a time-dependent admixture of the eigenstates. Thus the time-dependent perturbation causes the system to undergo transition to different eigenstates of Hˆ0. So for time-dependent perturbations our interest lies in calculating the probabilities for transition to different states.
A nondegenerate perturbation theory is studied using the adiabatic-theorem formalism. A new factorization of the adiabatic time-evolution operator analogous to that obtained by Morita in his derivation of the linked-cluster theorem is given by carrying out a series of intermediate representations. This leads to a new expansion for the perturbed eigenvectors \ensuremath{\Vert}\ensuremath{\alpha}〉 and energies ${E}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ which are analytically expressed with respect to two matrix series scrV(n){\mathrm{scrV}}^{(n)}scrV(n) and E(n){E}^{(n)}E(n). The nth term of each series (scrV(n){\mathrm{scrV}}^{(n)}scrV(n) and E(n){E}^{(n)}E(n)) includes perturbational contributions of power p, p\ensuremath{\ge}n. An explicit recurrence, scrV(n){\mathrm{scrV}}^{(n)}scrV(n)=V(${\mathrm{scrV}}^{n\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1)}$, ${E}^{(n\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1)}$), E(n){E}^{(n)}E(n)=E(${\mathrm{scrV}}^{(n\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1)}$, ${E}^{(n\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1)}$) is derived and allows us to calculate these matrices to an arbitrary iteration order (n). This is a central feature of our approach since the eigenvectors and eigenvalues can be generated, to this arbitrary order, by a simple numerical program.
The accuracy of the renormalized perturbation series for anharmonic oscillators and other simple quantum-mechanical models increases with the quantum number when the adjustable parameter is determined by a simple variational criterion. In the semiclassical limit of quantum mechanics such an expansion converges towards the result of the Jeffreys–Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin method to all orders. The hypervirial and Hellmann–Feynman theorems facilitate the derivation of the semiclassical series from Rayleigh–Schrödinger perturbation theory.