We show how Wegner's flow equations can be reformulated as ordinary differential equations through the use of the Moyal bracket. In finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces the introduction of the Moyal bracket leads naturally to the identification of a small expansion parameter, namely the inverse of the dimensionality of the space. This expansion corresponds to a non-perturbative treatment of the coupling constant. In the case of infinite-dimensional spaces ℏ plays the role of the small parameter and the Moyal formulation then allows for a semi-classical treatment of the flow equation. We demonstrate these statements for the Lipkin and Dicke models as well as for the symmetric x 4 and double-well potentials.
We show how Wegner's flow equations can be reformulated as ordinary differential equations through the use of the Moyal bracket. In finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces the introduction of the Moyal bracket leads naturally to the identification of a small expansion parameter, namely the inverse of the dimensionality of the space. This expansion corresponds to a non-perturbative treatment of the coupling constant. In the case of infinite-dimensional spaces ℏ plays the role of the small parameter and the Moyal formulation then allows for a semi-classical treatment of the flow equation. We demonstrate these statements for the Lipkin and Dicke models as well as for the symmetric x 4 and double-well potentials.
We use a novel parametrization of the flowing Hamiltonian to show that the flow equations based on continuous unitary transformations, as proposed by Wegner, can be implemented through a nonlinear partial differential equation involving one flow parameter and two system specific auxiliary variables. The implementation is non-perturbative as the partial differential equation involves a systematic expansion in fluctuations, controlled by the size of the system, rather than the coupling constant. The method is applied to the Lipkin model to construct a mapping which maps the non-interacting spectrum onto the interacting spectrum to a very high accuracy. This function is universal in the sense that the full spectrum for any (large) number of particles can be obtained from it. In a similar way expectation values for a large class of operators can be obtained, which also makes it possible to probe the structure of the eigenstates.
The Moyal description of quantum mechanics, based on the Wigner-Weyl isomorphism between operators and symbols, provides a comprehensive phase space representation of dynamics. The Weyl symbol image of the Heisenberg picture evolution operator is regular in ħ and so presents a preferred foundation for semiclassical analysis. Its semiclassical expansion "coefficients," acting on symbols that represent observables, are simple, globally defined (phase space) differential operators constructed in terms of the classical flow. The first of two presented methods introduces a cluster-graph expansion for the symbol of an exponentiated operator, which extends Groenewold′s formula for the Weyl product of two symbols and has ħ as its natural small parameter. This Poisson bracket based cluster expansion determines the Jacobi equations for the semiclassical expansion of "quantum trajectories." Their Green function solutions construct the regular ħ ⇓ 0 asymptotic series for the Heisenberg-Weyl evolution map. The second method directly substitutes such a series into the Moyal equation of motion and determines the ħ coefficients recursively. In contrast to the WKB approximation for propagators, the Heisenberg-Weyl description of evolution involves no essential singularity in ħ, no Hamilton-Jacobi equation to solve for the action, and no multiple trajectories, caustics, or Maslov indices.
Statistical reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of phase-space distribution functions as given by Moyal using Weyl's correspondence rule between classical functions and operators has been extended to various different correspondence rules. The dynamical bracket in the Weyl correspondence (the ``Moyal'' or the ``sine'' bracket) is shown to be a Lie bracket. It is further shown that if the theory is restricted to Lie brackets of the form [u(p, q),υ(p, q)]={f(∂2∂q1 ∂p2−∂2∂q2 ∂p1)u(p1, q1)υ(p2, q2)},evaluated for p1 = p2 = p; q1 = q2 = q after differentiation, then the only admissible functional form of f is f(x) = β[(sin αx)/α], where α and β are constants. A law of multiplication which is associative and distributive with respect to addition is also introduced in each case. It gives a correct correspondence between operator multiplication and the multiplication of classical functions. The dynamical brackets obtained in each case are also found to be Lie brackets. Conditions on the phase-space distribution functions to describe pure states are also given.
We study the Moyal evolution of the canonical position and momentum variables. We compare it with the classical evolution and show that, contrary to what is commonly found in the literature, the two dynamics do not coincide. We prove that this divergence is quite general by studying Hamiltonians of the form p2/2m+V(q). Several alternative formulations of Moyal dynamics are then suggested. We introduce the concept of starfunction and use it to reformulate the Moyal equations in terms of a system of ordinary differential equations on the noncommutative Moyal plane. We then use this formulation to study the semiclassical expansion of Moyal trajectories, which is cast in terms of a (order by order in hbar) recursive hierarchy of i) first order partial differential equations as well as ii) systems of first order ordinary differential equations. The latter formulation is derived independently for analytic Hamiltonians as well as for the more general case of smooth local integrable ones. We present various examples illustrating these results.
We start from Wootter's construction of discrete phase spaces and Wigner functions for qubits and more generally for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. We look at this framework from a non-commutative space perspective and we focus on the Moyal product and the differential calculus on these discrete phase spaces. In particular, the qubit phase space provides the simplest example of a four-point non-commutative phase space. We give an explicit expression of the Moyal bracket as a differential operator. We then compare the quantum dynamics encoded by the Moyal bracket to the classical dynamics: we show that the classical Poisson bracket does not satisfy the Jacobi identity thus leaving the Moyal bracket as the only consistent symplectic structure. We finally generalize our analysis to Hilbert spaces of prime dimensions d and their associated d × d phase spaces.
Continuing a previous paper [G. Braunss, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43, 025302 (2010)10.1088/1751-8113/43/2/025302] where we had calculated ℏ2-approximations of quantum phase space viz. Moyal trajectories of examples with one and two degrees of freedom, we present in this paper the calculation of ℏ2-approximations for four examples: a two-dimensional Toda chain, the radially symmetric Schwarzschild field, and two examples with three degrees of freedom, the latter being the nonrelativistic spherically Coulomb potential and the relativistic cylinder symmetrical Coulomb potential with a magnetic field H. We show in particular that an ℏ2-approximation of the nonrelativistic Coulomb field has no singularity at the origin (r = 0) whereas the classical trajectories are singular at r = 0. In the third example, we show in particular that for an arbitrary function γ(H, z) the expression β ≡ pz + γ(H, z) is classically (ℏ = 0) a constant of motion, whereas for ℏ ≠ 0 this holds only if γ(H, z) is an arbitrary polynomial of second order in z. This statement is shown to extend correspondingly to a cylinder symmetrical Schwarzschild field with a magnetic field. We exhibit in detail a number of properties of the radially symmetric Schwarzschild field. We exhibit finally the problems of the nonintegrable Hénon-Heiles Hamiltonian and give a short review of the regular Hilbert space representation of Moyal operators.