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International Journal of Quantum Chemistry

Wilson-Sommerfeld quantization rule revisited

S. Mukhopadhyay, K. Bhattacharyya, R.K. Pathak

Published Jan 1, 2001• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A fresh look at the origin of the Wilson–Sommerfeld quantization rule has been pursued to gain new insight. The rule is shown to provide states that satisfy several well-known theorems of standard quantum mechanics. A few other useful results and scaling relations are also derived. They emerge to act as nice guiding rules of thumb in the course of rigorous computations. Certain features of true excited-state densities can be understood. Goodness of approximate densities can be assessed. Compressed systems can be studied profitably. A route is also sketched that allows one to retrieve classical trajectories from near-exact energy eigenfunctions for both bound and resonant states by exploiting this rule. Additionally, a discussion on semiclassical perturbation theory is presented emphasizing the asymptotic behavior. Pilot calculations demonstrate the success of the present endeavor under various circumstances. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 82: 113–125, 2001

DOI
10.1002/1097-461x(2001)82:3<113::aid-qua1019>3.0.co;2-i

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A fresh look at the origin of the Wilson–Sommerfeld quantization rule has been pursued to gain new insight. The rule is shown to provide states that satisfy several well-known theorems of standard quantum mechanics. A few other useful results and scaling relations are also derived. They emerge to act as nice guiding rules of thumb in the course of rigorous computations. Certain features of true excited-state densities can be understood. Goodness of approximate densities can be assessed. Compressed systems can be studied profitably. A route is also sketched that allows one to retrieve classical trajectories from near-exact energy eigenfunctions for both bound and resonant states by exploiting this rule. Additionally, a discussion on semiclassical perturbation theory is presented emphasizing the asymptotic behavior. Pilot calculations demonstrate the success of the present endeavor under various circumstances. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 82: 113–125, 2001
With the use of the Weyl correspondence between quantum mechanical operators and classical dynamical functions, an exact quantization rule is derived for a system with one degree of freedom and arbitrary Hamiltonian. In the semiclassical limit of small Planck's constant, this reduces to the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rule as derived by the WKB approximation. Higher order terms are also derived. It is further proven that for a simple harmonic oscillator the Bohr-Sommerfeld rule must give the exact energy eigenvalues for all states.
Bohr's atomic theory is widely viewed as remarkable, both for its accuracy in predicting the observed optical transitions of one-electron atoms and for its failure to fully correspond with current electronic structure theory. What is not generally appreciated is that Bohr's original semiclassical conception differed significantly from the Bohr-Sommerfeld theory and offers an alternative semiclassical approximation scheme with remarkable attributes. More specifically, Bohr's original method did not impose action quantization constraints but rather obtained these as predictions by simply matching photon and classical orbital frequencies. In other words, the hydrogen atom was treated entirely classically and orbital quantized emerged directly from the Planck-Einstein photon quantization condition, E = h nu. Here, we revisit this early history of quantum theory and demonstrate the application of Bohr's original strategy to the three quintessential quantum systems: an electron in a box, an electron in a ring, and a dipolar harmonic oscillator. The usual energy-level spectra, and optical selection rules, emerge by solving an algebraic (quadratic) equation, rather than a Bohr-Sommerfeld integral (or Schroedinger) equation. However, the new predictions include a frozen (zero-kinetic-energy) state which in some (but not all) cases lies below the usual zero-point energy. In addition to raising provocative questions concerning the origin of quantum-chemical phenomena, the results may prove to be of pedagogical value in introducing students to quantum mechanics.
We review Bohr's atomic model and its extension by Sommerfeld from a mathematical perspective of wave mechanics.The derivation of quantization rules and energy levels is revisited using semiclassical methods.Sommerfeld-type integrals are evaluated by elementary techniques, and connections with the Schr odinger and Dirac equations are established.Historical developments and key transitions from classical to quantum theory are discussed to clarify the structure and significance of the old quantum mechanics.
Einstein (1917) appreciated early on that within the “old” pre-1925/26 quantum mechanics absence of integrability is a serious obstacle for the quantization of classical systems. Therefore, in retrospect not surprisingly, the quantization problem was not adequately solved until the advent of the “new” quantum mechanics by Heisenberg, Born, Jordan and Schrödinger. The new quantum mechanics did not rely at all on the notion of classical paths, and this way, unwittingly, sidestepped the chaos problem. Within the framework of the new theory, any classical system can be quantized, including classically chaotic systems. But while the quantization of integrable systems is straightforward, the quantization of classically chaotic systems, even today, presents a formidable technical challenge. This is especially true for quantization in the semiclassical regime, where the quantum numbers involved are large. In fact, efficient semiclassical quantization rules for chaotic systems were not known until Gutzwiller (1971, 1990) intoduced periodic orbit expansions. Gutzwiller's method is discussed in Section 4.1.3 below. It is important to emphasize here that the existence of chaos in certain classical systems in no way introduces conceptual problems into the framework of modern quantum theory, although, let it be emphasized again, chaos came back with a vengeance from the “old” days of quantum mechanics. Even given all the modern day computer power accessible to the “practitioner” of quantum mechanics, chaos is the ultimate reason for the slow progress in the numerical computation of even moderately excited states in such important, but chaotic problems as the helium atom.
Abstract By involving the uncertainty product along with a semiclassical requirement for observables, a simple variational scheme is employed to extract major features of bound states of systems in (−∞,∞) and the same of systems confined in (−L,L). Special attention is paid to perturbative studies on the asymptotic behavior of energies for oscillators in infinite domains and dependence of energy spectra of oscillators in finite domains on various system parameters. A corrected form of the virial theorem is obtained in the latter case. The governing equations for quantum isothermal and adiabatic processes, derived recently, are also shown to be modified for general confined oscillator systems and closed‐form expressions are found. These results are useful in dealing with the quantum Carnot cycles. Advantages of the present route over other semiclassical strategies are stressed. Pilot calculations demonstrate nicely the efficacy of the endeavor under various situations. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2001