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College Physics

General wave packets in a homogeneous field

Lin Qiong

Published Jan 1, 2003• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The centroid and width of a general wave packet moving in a homogeneous field in one dimension are obtained as explicit functions of time.The centroid moves like a classical particle,and the width increases with time quadratically.However,the width of the corresponding wave packet in the momentum space does not vary with time,so a plane wave remains to be a plane wave at any time.The time dependence of a Gaussian wave packet is worked out explicitly and the general results are verified.

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The centroid and width of a general wave packet moving in a homogeneous field in one dimension are obtained as explicit functions of time.The centroid moves like a classical particle,and the width increases with time quadratically.However,the width of the corresponding wave packet in the momentum space does not vary with time,so a plane wave remains to be a plane wave at any time.The time dependence of a Gaussian wave packet is worked out explicitly and the general results are verified.
The usual textbook discussions of the velocity and spreading of a wave packet are based on special cases and approximations which have a limited range of validity. In this paper more general relations are obtained by considering the time dependence of the moments of a wave packet. Both a packet of real sinusoidal plane waves (a real pulse, e.g., sound) and a packet of complex exponential plane waves (e.g., the quantum-mechanical wave function of a free particle) are considered. The results are similar if the real wave packet contains no standing wave components. It is shown that the centroid of a wave packet moves at a constant velocity which is a weighted average of the group velocity. The spreading of the wave packet depends on the product of the variance of the group velocity and the square of the time interval before or after the time of minimum packet width. The packet moves and spreads like a collection of particles in free flight, in which the velocities of the particles are the group velocities of the wave components of the packet.
A Gaussian wave packet confined to move on a plane perpendicular to a magnetic field remains a Gaussian wave packet in its time evolution. The average position and momentum follow the Ehrenfest equations which are identical to the classical Hamilton equations. A set of nonlinear equations decoupled from the Ehrenfest equation is derived for the parameters describing the time evolution of the density distribution and phases of a wave packet. Explicit solutions are then obtained when the “internal” angular momentum of the wave packet vanishes. In this case it is shown that the motion of the wave packet is a superposition of a translational motion, a rotation and a vibration.
A motion of a Gaussian wave packet of a single electron in a harmonic potential is obtained by solving the time dependent Schrödinger equation analytically. The analytic formula of the phase of the wave function which depends on both time and space is also presented explicitly. The probability density of the wave packet moves changing its width and central position periodically. The period of the change of the width is half of that of the central position. The interpretation of these periodic changes in terms of the Green's function which can be derived by the path integration formulation is also discussed.
The motion of wave packets can be easily determined for any Hamiltonian that is quadratic in position and momentum, even if the coefficients of the terms in the Hamiltonian vary with time. The method is based on the existence of an invariant operator, linear in position and momentum, the coefficients of these operators being solutions of the corresponding classical system. This immediately yields a set of very simple wave packets whose evolution is easily determined, and whose magnitude has the same form as the energy eigenfunctions of the harmonic oscillator (i.e., Gaussian or Hermite–Gaussian). This set provides a complete basis for finding the evolution of any state and the exact propagator is readily determined. For the harmonic oscillator, this set includes coherent states, squeezed states, displaced number states, and squeezed number states as special cases. The following important properties hold for every quadratic Hamiltonian, no matter what time dependence is present in the Hamiltonian: (1) The motion of the centroid of any wave packet separates from that of any moments relative to the centroid. (2) Every detail of the evolution of the quantum system can be calculated from the solutions of the corresponding classical system. (3) Wave functions of Gaussian (or Hermite–Gaussian) form will retain that form as they evolve.
The tomography of a single quantum particle (i.e., a quantum wave packet) in an accelerated frame is studied. We write the Schrödinger equation in a moving reference frame in which acceleration is uniform in space and an arbitrary function of time. Then, we reduce such a problem to the study of spatiotemporal evolution of the wave packet in an inertial frame in the presence of a homogeneous force field but with an arbitrary time dependence. We demonstrate the existence of a Gaussian wave packet solution, for which the position and momentum uncertainties are unaffected by the uniform force field. This implies that, similar to in the case of a force-free motion, the uncertainty product is unaffected by acceleration. In addition, according to the Ehrenfest theorem, the wave packet centroid moves according to classic Newton's law of a particle experiencing the effects of uniform acceleration. Furthermore, as in free motion, the wave packet exhibits a diffraction spread in the configuration space but not in momentum space. Then, using Radon transform, we determine the quantum tomogram of the Gaussian state evolution in the accelerated frame. Finally, we characterize the wave packet evolution in the accelerated frame in terms of optical and simplectic tomogram evolution in the related tomographic space.
A Gaussian wave packet of the inverted oscillator is investigated using the invariant operator method together with the unitary transformation method. A simple wave packet directly derived from the eigenstates of the invariant operator of the system corresponds to a plane wave that is fully delocalized. However, we can construct a weighted wave packet in terms of such plane waves, which corresponds to a Gaussian wave. This wave packet is associated with the generalized coherent state, which can be crucially utilized for investigating the classical limit of quantum wave mechanics. Various quantum properties of the system, such as fluctuations of the canonical variables, the uncertainty product, and the motion of the wave packet or quantum particle, are analyzed by means of this wave packet. We have confirmed that the time behavior of such a wave packet is very similar to the counterpart classical state. The wave packet runs away from the origin in the positive or negative direction in the 1D coordinate depending on the condition of the initial state. We have confirmed that this wave packet not only moves acceleratively but also spreads out during its propagation.