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CRC Press eBooks

Introduction

Rajat Kumar Chaudhuri, Sudip Kumar Chattopadhyay

Published Feb 17, 2017• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Perturbation theory, in the arena of quantum mechanics, refers to a set of physically motivated and intuitive approximations engineered by mathematical perturbation to describe and explore the properties of a complicated system. The philosophy of perturbation theory is to begin with a simpler system, whose mathematical solution is known to the best of one’s knowledge, and then “perturb” the system by means of an externally tunable influence. For a disturbance that is not too strong, the physical quantities associated with the perturbed system can be expressed in terms of the “corrections” of the corresponding quantities of the simpler (unperturbed) system. For small perturbation, the magnitudes of these correction terms are really small in light of the magnitude of the quantities themselves and are therefore subject to treatments by approximations like the asymptotic series. The accuracy of the evaluated physical quantity, among other factors, depends on the extent to which such correction terms are incorporated. Therefore, perturbation theory is a useful avenue to explore the properties of a complicated system, where the exact (analytic) solution of the system is either difficult or impossible to achieve.

DOI
10.1201/9781315373881-8

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Perturbation theory, in the arena of quantum mechanics, refers to a set of physically motivated and intuitive approximations engineered by mathematical perturbation to describe and explore the properties of a complicated system. The philosophy of perturbation theory is to begin with a simpler system, whose mathematical solution is known to the best of one’s knowledge, and then “perturb” the system by means of an externally tunable influence. For a disturbance that is not too strong, the physical quantities associated with the perturbed system can be expressed in terms of the “corrections” of the corresponding quantities of the simpler (unperturbed) system. For small perturbation, the magnitudes of these correction terms are really small in light of the magnitude of the quantities themselves and are therefore subject to treatments by approximations like the asymptotic series. The accuracy of the evaluated physical quantity, among other factors, depends on the extent to which such correction terms are incorporated. Therefore, perturbation theory is a useful avenue to explore the properties of a complicated system, where the exact (analytic) solution of the system is either difficult or impossible to achieve.
The vast majority of problems in quantum mechanics cannot be solved exactly. As in all theories of physics approximation methods are therefore of great importance. Here we shall deal with time-independent problems, which means that we seek the eigenvalues and eigenstates of H . In perturbation theory we split H into two pieces, H = H 0 + H 1 , where we know the spectrum and eigenstates of H 0 , and H 1 is, in some sense, small. Needless to say, a split of this type is often not possible, or at least unknown. In that case one frequently replaces the system by a simpler model for which perturbation theory works, and which, it is hoped, captures some of the essential features of the actual problem at hand. This art of finding models is something that can only be taken up within the context of a particular subject (e.g., solid state or nuclear physics). Here we shall treat systems where good zero-order solutions are rather obvious.
In the previous chapters, we have solved a series of problems that all have an exact solution. However, there are only a select few problems in quantum mechanics that provide exact analytical solutions. Those problems that can be solved exactly are the free particle, the one-dimensional barrier potential, the finite and the infinite square wells, the infinite triangular well, the harmonic oscillator, and the hydrogen atom, including both its nonrelativistic and relativistic solutions. However, there are many problems different from the above-mentioned few as well as problems that cannot be approximated by these solutions. What happens then if we want to solve a different problem, such as the helium atom or the hydrogen atom in an applied electric field? To solve these problems it is necessary to use approximation techniques. In this chapter, we consider some of these techniques, the most important being the time-independent and the time-dependent perturbation theories. We begin with a discussion of time-independent disturbances in a nondegenerate system. Time-independent Perturbation Theory: The Nondegenerate Case We seek to determine the solution to a problem in which a small disturbance is applied to an otherwise determinable system. Perturbation theory is used most often in cases for which the solution to the undisturbed (unperturbed) system is known and the perturbation is small. For example, perturbation theory is useful in solving for the energy levels in a hydrogen atom in the presence of a small external electric field.
The time independent, non-degenerate standard perturbation theory is compared the alternate treatment of perturbation theory called logarithmic perturbation theory (LPT). For determining the non-degenerate ground state the LPT is, in principle, easier to apply than standard perturbation theory. This is because, as opposed to the standard perturbation method which requires the knowledge of the complete set of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the unperturbed system, for the LPT one only needs to know the ground state wave function of the unperturbed system, the energy correction to the next lower order and some easily computable coupling constants. However, in reality, the LPT is a simpler method to apply when the ground state wavefunction is exponential in nature. But as shown here for trigonometric unperturbed wave function the LPT leads to integrals which have no analytical solutions thereby making LPT more difficult and less accurate method than the standard perturbation approach. Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics Vol. 10 2006: pp. 595-600
We give a brief and basic introduction to perturbation theory. The main idea is to attempt to consider the situation of interest as a small perturbation of a simpler situation (which can be understood completely), and in particular to consider a system with a weak interaction as a perturbation of a non-interacting system. We develop the interaction picture, which allows approximating the time-evolution of an interacting system by the partial sums of the Dyson series, a fundamental tool for the sequel. We illustrate these ideas on a rudimentary model of the interaction of electrons and “photons”.
In Chapter 9 we applied the second quantization to the Hartree–Fock method. In this chapter we provide the basic aspects of the thermal Green function method, which is convenient for systematic perturbative expansion beyond the mean-field approximation. Several problems in quantum statistical mechanics can be elegantly and compactly described in terms of the so-called Matsubara Green functions (Matsubara (1955); Abrikosov et al. (1963)). Hence, if on one hand, the density matrix description, often used in the previous chapters, has a more direct physical interpretation, on the other hand the Green function method is far more powerful and takes advantage of a handy diagrammatic perturbation expansion. In the following chapters, we rely on the Green function for a more complete treatment of some many-body problems. To be self contained we introduce here this technical chapter with a short presentation of the by now standard Green function method. For a comprehensive treatment we refer the reader to the many books available and in particular to Abrikosov et al. (1963). The Matsubara Green function The main aim of quantum statistical mechanics is the evaluation of the partition function (see Eqs. (6.31) and (6.32)), e.g. in the grand canonical ensemble In the case of quantum gases one can evaluate Ƶ exactly as we did in Chapter 7. In general, the evaluation of the partition function is a difficult task and it is useful to use perturbation theory to obtain approximate solutions. To set up a perturbation theory, one begins by splitting the Hamiltonian as H = H 0 + H i, where H 0 represents the “easy” part, which can be solved exactly. In the second step, one could naturally think of expanding the exponential of the interacting part H i in order to write the partition function as a perturbative series. However, such a procedure requires extreme care due to the non-commutative nature of operators in quantum mechanics. The way of solving this problem is via the “ time ” ordering of operators in each term of the perturbative expansion. It can be shown, as we shall see in the present chapter, that the quantum statistical average of any time-ordered sequence of operators with respect to the unperturbed Hamiltonian H 0 can be expressed in terms of elementary quantum statistical averages of two field operators. Such elementary averages are called Green functions and in this section we introduce the basic definitions concerning them.