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The Journal of Physical Chemistry A

Properties of Minimum Uncertainty Wavelets and Their Relations to the Harmonic Oscillator and the Coherent States

Donald Jack Kouri, Manos Papadakis, Ioannis A. Kakadiaris, David K. Hoffman

Published Aug 28, 2003• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We consider additional aspects of the recently derived “minimum uncertainty” (μ) wavelets. In particular, we show that they are fundamentally related to both the harmonic oscillator eigenstates and the canonical coherent states that play a fundamental role in quantum dynamics. In addition, we derive new raising and lowering operators that apply to the μ-wavelets. Finally, we explore in some detail the senses in which the μ-wavelets form complete sets that can be used in a variety of applications in quantum dynamics.

DOI
10.1021/jp030686s

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We consider additional aspects of the recently derived “minimum uncertainty” (μ) wavelets. In particular, we show that they are fundamentally related to both the harmonic oscillator eigenstates and the canonical coherent states that play a fundamental role in quantum dynamics. In addition, we derive new raising and lowering operators that apply to the μ-wavelets. Finally, we explore in some detail the senses in which the μ-wavelets form complete sets that can be used in a variety of applications in quantum dynamics.
We obtain the exact, normalized, closed-form eigenfunctions for the one-dimensional Morse oscillator, as well as the raising and lowering operators. We next review a new method for obtaining the coherent states for arbitrary potentials, it being based on the classical motion of a particle. We apply this method to the Morse oscillator. After demonstrating that in the appropriate limit our results reduce to those for the harmonic oscillator, we obtain analytic insights into published numerical results on uncertainty products for Morse-oscillator wave packets.
We first review the properties of the harmonic-oscillator coherent states which can be equivalently defined as (a) a specific subset of the $x\ensuremath{-}p$ minimum-uncertainty states, (b) eigenstates of the annihilation operator, or (c) states created by a certain unitary exponential displacement operator. Then we present a new method for finding coherent states for particles in general potentials. Its basis is the desire to find those states which most nearly follow the classical motion, but it is most nearly a generalization of the minimum-uncertainty method. The properties of these states are discussed in detail. Next we show that the annihilation operator and displacement operator methods, as heretofore defined, cannot be applied to general potentials (whose eigenvalues are not equally spaced). We define a generalization of these methods but show that the states so defined are not, in general, equivalent to the minimum-uncertainty coherent states. We discuss a number of properties of our coherent states and the procedures we have used.
Local minimum solutions to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle are studied in detail. Of particular concern is obtaining an optimal procedure to squeeze the uncertainty in one canonical operator while introducing, in a well-defined mathematical sense, the least possible increase in the uncertainty of the relevant conjugate operator. The result is a hierarchy of ``minimum uncertainty $(\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-})$ wavelets,'' which are intimately associated with the ``Hermite distributed approximating functionals'' [D. K. Hoffman and D. J. Kouri, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5263 (2000)]. The $\ensuremath{\mu}$ wavelets can be used with any quantum state to squeeze the uncertainty of a particular observable. Several specific examples are given and some possible applications are discussed.
The Hamiltonian for the oscillator has earlier been written in the form where ν† and ν are raising and lowering operators for ν†ν, which has eigenvalues k (the ’’radial’’ quantum number), and λ† and λ are raising and lowering 3-vector operators for λ†⋅λ, which has eigenvalues l (the total angular momentum quantum number). A new set of coherent states for the oscillator is now defined by diagonalizing ν and λ. These states bear a similar relation to the commuting operators H, L2, and L3 (where L is the angular momentum of the system) as the usual coherent states do to the commuting number operators N1, N2, and N3. It is proposed to call them coherent angular momentum states. They are shown to be minimum-uncertainty states for the variables ν, ν† , λ, and λ†, and to provide a new quasiclassical description of the oscillator. This description coincides with that provided by the usual coherent states only in the special case that the corresponding classical motion is circular, rather than elliptical; and, in general, the uncertainty in the angular momentum of the system is smaller in the new description. The probabilities of obtaining particular values for k and l in one of the new states follow independent Poisson distributions. The new states are overcomplete, and lead to a new representation of the Hilbert space for the oscillator, in terms of analytic functions on C×K3, where K3 is the three-dimensional complex cone. This space is related to one introduced recently by Bargmann and Todorov, and carries a very simple realization of all the representations of the rotation group.