For the quantum mechanical, nonrelativistic two-body system, wave operators can be approximated by exponentials of finite-rank operators obtained by finite-dimensional projections of the full and the asymptotic Hamiltonian onto a set of Hermite functions. This yields a weak approximation of the S matrix.
The fundamental position and momentum operators of quantum mechanics are unbounded, but finite rank compressions of the operators can be considered to obtain partial information on the operators and their properties. Motivated by problems in photonic quantum computing, we bring together results from quantum theory and the theory of orthogonal polynomials to show that a natural finite rank compression of the position and momentum operator representation on Fock space Hilbert space has eigenvalues given by roots of the classical Hermite polynomials. We discuss the corresponding compressed displacement operators and potential applications in approximate quantum error correction.
The construction of operator functionals of the full Hamiltonian of a quantum-mechanical system which act as projection operators for a specified exact eigenstate is studied. In general these operator functionals are not equivalent to the formal operator |ψ〉〈ψ|, where |ψ〉 is the state of interest, and are not always idempotent. A formal method by which standard perturbation theoretic expansions for the exact ground-state vector and ground-state energy of the system can be recovered by expansion of a certain operator functional of this type is presented. Related work is briefly discussed.
In this thesis, we construct an approximate series solution of the Wigner equation in terms of Airy functions, which are semiclassically concentrated on certain Lagrangian curves in two-dimensional phase space. These curves are defined by the eigenvalues and the Hamiltonian function of the associated one-dimensional Schrödinger operator, and they play a crucial role in the quantum interference mechanism in phase space. We assume that the potential of the Schrödinger operator is a single potential well, such that the spectrum is discrete. The construction starts from an eigenfunction series expansion of the solution, which is derived here for first time in a systematic way, by combining the elementary technique of separation of variables with involved spectral results for the Moyal star exponential operator. The eigenfunctions of the Wigner equation are the Wigner transforms of the Schrödinger eigenfunctions, and they are approximated in terms of Airy functions by a uniform stationary phase approximation of the Wigner transforms of the WKB expansions of the Schrödinger eigenfunctions. The approximation of the eigenfunction series is an approximated solution of the Wigner equation, which by projection onto the configuration space provides an approximate wave amplitude, free of turning point singularities. It is generally expected that, the derived wave amplitude is bounded, and correctly scaled, even on caustics, since only finite terms of the approximate terms are significant for WKB initial wave functions with finite energy. The details of the calculations are presented for the simple potential of the harmonic oscillator, in order to be able to check our approximations analytically. But, the same construction can be applied to any potential well, which behaves like the harmonic oscillator near the bottom of the well.
Suppose H is the Hamiltonian that generates time evolution in an N-body, spin-dependent, nonrelativistic quantum system. If r is the total number of independent spin components and the particles move in three dimensions, then the Hamiltonian H is an r×r matrix operator given by the sum of the negative Laplacian −Δx on the (d=3N)-dimensional Euclidean space Rd plus a Hermitian local matrix potential W(x). Uniform higher-order asymptotic expansions are derived for the time-evolution kernel, the heat kernel, and the resolvent kernel. These expansions are, respectively, for short times, high temperatures, and high energies. Explicit formulas for the matrix-valued coefficient functions entering the asymptotic expansions are determined. All the asymptotic expansions are accompanied by bounds for their respective error terms. These results are obtained for the class of potentials defined as the Fourier image of bounded complex-valued matrix measures. This class is suitable for the N-body problem since interactions of this type do not necessarily decrease as ‖x‖→∞. Furthermore, this Fourier image class also contains periodic, almost periodic, and continuous random potentials. The method employed is based upon a constructive series representation of the kernels that define the analytic semigroup {e−zH‖Re z>0}. The asymptotic expansions obtained are valid for all finite coordinate space dimensions d and all finite vector space dimensions r, and are uniform in Rd×Rd. The order of expansion is solely a function of the smoothness properties of the local potential W(x).