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Acta Physica Sinica

The Cartesian momentum and the kinetic operators on curved surfaces

Quanhui Liu, 湖南大学理论物理研究所，长沙 410082

Published Jan 1, 2008• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

For describing particles moving on the two dimensional curved surfaces, we can use either the intrinsic local coordinates or the Cartesian coordinates. The representation of the momentum operators differs from each other in these two kinds of coordinates, the former ones depend on the intrinsic geometrical quantities, but the latter case depend on a geometrical invariant, namely the mean curvature. Taking the operator-ordering problem into consideration, the kinetic operator for the former case can be expressed in a possibly unique way, while that for latter case can be expressed in two different ways.

DOI
10.7498/aps.57.674

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For describing particles moving on the two dimensional curved surfaces, we can use either the intrinsic local coordinates or the Cartesian coordinates. The representation of the momentum operators differs from each other in these two kinds of coordinates, the former ones depend on the intrinsic geometrical quantities, but the latter case depend on a geometrical invariant, namely the mean curvature. Taking the operator-ordering problem into consideration, the kinetic operator for the former case can be expressed in a possibly unique way, while that for latter case can be expressed in two different ways.
Abstract The Hermitian surface momentum operator for a particle confined to a 2D curved surface spanned by orthogonal coordinates and embedded in 3D space is expressed as a symmetric expression in derivatives with respect to the surface coordinates and so is manifestly along the surface. This is an alternative form to the one reported in the literature and usually named geometric momentum, which has a term proportional to the mean curvature along the direction normal to the surface, and so “apparently” not along the surface. The symmetric form of the momentum is the sum of two symmetric Hermitian operators along the two orthogonal directions defined by the surface coordinates. The centripetal force operator for a particle on the surface of a cylinder and a sphere is calculated by taking the time derivative of the momentum and is seen to be a symmetrization of the well-known classical expressions.
When a two-dimensional curved surface is conceived as a limiting case of a curved shell of equal thickness d, where the limit d\rightarrow0 is then taken, the well-known geometric potential is induced by the kinetic energy operator, in fact by the second order partial derivatives. Applying this confining procedure to the momentum operator, in fact to the first order partial derivatives, we find the so-called geometric momentum instead. This momentum is compatible with the Dirac's canonical quantization theory on system with second-class constraints. The distribution amplitudes of the geometric momentum on the spherical harmonics are analytically determined, and they are experimentally testable for rotational states of spherical molecules such as C_{60}.
As a manifold is embedded into a higher dimensional Euclidean space, quantum mechanics gives various embedding quantities. In the present study, two embedding quantities for a two-dimensional curved surface in the three-dimensional flat space, the geometric momentum and the geometric potential, are derived in a unified manner. For a particle moving on a two-dimensional sphere or a free rotation of a spherical top, the projections of both the geometric momentum p\mathbf{p}p and the angular momentum L\mathbf{L}L onto a certain Cartesian axis form a complete set of commuting observables as [pi,Li]=0[p_{i},L_{i}]=0[pi​,Li​]=0 (i=1,2,3i=1,2,3i=1,2,3), thus constituting a dynamical (pi,Li)(p_{i},L_{i})(pi​,Li​) representation for the states on the two-dimensional spherical surface. The geometric momentum distribution of the states represented by spherical harmonics is successfully obtained, and this distribution for a homonuclear diatomic molecule seems within the resolution power of present momentum spectrometers and can be measured to probe the embedding effect.
For a non-relativistic particle that freely moves on a curved surface, the fundamental commutation relations between positions and momenta are insufficient to uniquely determine the operator form of the momenta. With introduction of more commutation relations between positions and Hamiltonian and those between momenta and Hamiltonian, our recent sequential studies imply that the Cartesian system of coordinates is physically preferable, consistent with Dirac' observation. In present paper, we study quantization problem of the motion constrained on the two-dimensional sphere and develop a discriminant that can be used to show how the quantization within the intrinsic geometry is improper. Two kinds of parameterization of the spherical surface are explicitly invoked to investigate the quantization problem within the intrinsic geometry.
The dynamical system of a point particle constrained on a torus is quantized à la Dirac with two kinds of coordinate systems respectively; the Cartesian and toric coordinate systems. In the Cartesian coordinate system, it is difficult to express momentum operators in coordinate representation owing to the complication in structure of the commutation relations between canonical variables. In the toric coordinate system, the commutation relations have a simple form and their solutions in coordinate representation are easily obtained with, furthermore, two quantum Hamiltonians turning up. A problem comes out when the coordinate system is transformed, after quantization, from the Cartesian to the toric coordinate system.