The exact propagator beyond and at caustics for a pair of coupled and driven oscillators with different frequencies and masses is calculated using the path-integral approach. The exact wavefunctions and energies are also presented. Finally the propagator is re-calculated through an alternative method, using the zeta -function.
Using the Caldirola-Kanai Hamiltonian for the quantum dissipative system, the author expresses the propagator as the modified Feynman path integral in the configuration space, which can then be evaluated for the damped harmonic oscillator by Montroll's method. The propagator of the damped harmonic oscillator can also be calculated beyond and at caustics with the help of Horvathy-Feynman formula. The new results are confirmed by investigating the classical paths joining two fixed end-point positions, Finally the author obtains the time-dependent wavefunctions from the propagator of the dynamical system.
The exact solutions to the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for a harmonic oscillator with time-dependent mass and frequency were derived in a general form. The quantum mechanical propagator was calculated by the Feynman path integral method, while the wave function was derived from the spectral representation of the obtained propagator. It was shown that the propagator and the wave function depended on the s solution of a classical oscillator, in which the amplitude and phase satisfied the auxiliary equations. To demonstrate the derivation of the solution from our auxiliary equations, exponential and periodic functions of mass with constant frequency were imposed to evaluate the propagator and wave function for the Caldirola-Kanai and pulsating mass oscillators, respectively.
In this paper we obtain a propagator of path integral for a harmonic oscillator and a driven harmonic oscillator by using the power series expansion. It is shown that our result for the harmonic oscillator is more exact than the previous one obtained with other approximation methods. By using the same method, we obtain a propagator of path integral for the driven harmonic oscillator, which does not have any exact expansion. The more exact propagators may improve the path integral results for these systems.