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European Journal of Physics

Equivalent linearization technique for quantum anharmonic oscillators

Ria Sain, Jayanta K. Bhattacharjee

Published Aug 3, 2015• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Quantum dynamics means studying the evolution of an initially prescribed wave function. This is analytically tractable for special wavefunctions for the simplest of the situations—free particle and simple harmonic oscillator. The purely anharmonic oscillators are virtually impossible to handle. We show here that the study of Ehrenfest's equation provides an alternative route to studying quantum dynamics. It does not give exact answers but clarifies some basic aspects of quantum dynamics by providing a prescription for constructing equivalent simple harmonic oscillators.

DOI
10.1088/0143-0807/36/5/055025

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Abstract Quantum dynamics means studying the evolution of an initially prescribed wave function. This is analytically tractable for special wavefunctions for the simplest of the situations—free particle and simple harmonic oscillator. The purely anharmonic oscillators are virtually impossible to handle. We show here that the study of Ehrenfest's equation provides an alternative route to studying quantum dynamics. It does not give exact answers but clarifies some basic aspects of quantum dynamics by providing a prescription for constructing equivalent simple harmonic oscillators.
In this paper we introduce an alternative approach to studying the evolution of a quantum harmonic oscillator subject to an arbitrary time dependent force. With the purpose of finding the evolution operator, certain unitary transformations are applied successively to Schrödinger's equation reducing it to its simplest form. Therefore, instead of solving the original Schrödinger's partial differential equation in time and space the problem is replaced by a system of ordinary differential equations. From the obtained evolution operator we workout the propagator. Even though we illustrate the use of unitary transformations on the solution of a forced harmonic oscillator, the method presented here might be used to solve more complex systems. The present work addresses many aspects regarding unitary transformations and the dynamics of a forced quantum harmonic oscillator that should be useful for students and tutors of the quantum mechanics courses at the senior undergraduate and graduate level.
It is shown that general solutions of the free-particle Schroedinger equation can be mapped onto solutions of the Schroedinger equation for the harmonic oscillator. This is done in such a way that the time evolution of a free particle subjected to a sudden transition to a harmonic potential can be described by a simple coordinate transformation applied at the transition time. This procedure is computationally more efficient than either state-projection or propagator techniques. A concatenation of the map and its inverse allows us to map from one harmonic oscillator to another with a different spring constant.
Physical consequences of the theorem of equivalence among harmonic oscillators of different frequencies, including a free particle as a special case, are explored. A new pictorial way of understanding time-dependent coherent states and squeezed states are presented and contrasted with the standard view. Three-dimensional spherical analogues of squeezed coherent states are constructed. It is also shown as a corollary of the theorem that a free wave packet which coincides initially with any one of the eigenfunctions of a harmonic oscillator maintains its shape, that is, the probability density of position does not change apart from a time-dependent scaling of spatial coordinates. Most of the results are derived without use of any sophisticated techniques but with the knowledge of free wave packets alone.
Stemming from the similar linearities of the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics on the one hand and of the harmonic oscillations in classical mechanics on the other hand, the idea that any N-degree-of-freedom harmonic oscillator (HON) is formally equivalent to a N-level quantum system is put forward. It is shown that the complex dynamic variables α introduced by R. J. Glauber can be regarded as the components of a state vector belonging to some N-dimension complex Hilbert space, and whose time-evolution is ruled by a Schrödinger-like equation. In case the classical HON is parametrically excited, the unitarity of the time-evolution of the associated quantum system is related to the Ehrenfest adiabaticity of the parametric excitation.