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A Unified Spproach to Schrödinger Evolution of Superoscillations and Supershifts

Yakir Aharonov, Jussi Behrndt, Fabrizio Colombo, Peter Schlosser

Published Mar 14, 2022• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Superoscillating functions and supershifts appear naturally in weak measurements in physics. Their evolution as initial conditions in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is an important and challenging problem in quantum mechanics and mathematical analysis. The concept that encodes the persistence of superoscillations during the evolution is the (more general) supershift property of the solution. In this paper, we give a unified approach to determine the supershift property for the solution of the time-dependent one-dimensional Schrödinger equation. The main advantage and novelty of our results is that they only require suitable estimates and regularity assumptions on the Green’s function, but not its explicit form. With this efficient general technique, we are able to treat various potentials.

DOI
10.1007/s00028-022-00770-1

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Superoscillating functions and supershifts appear naturally in weak measurements in physics. Their evolution as initial conditions in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is an important and challenging problem in quantum mechanics and mathematical analysis. The concept that encodes the persistence of superoscillations during the evolution is the (more general) supershift property of the solution. In this paper, we give a unified approach to determine the supershift property for the solution of the time-dependent one-dimensional Schrödinger equation. The main advantage and novelty of our results is that they only require suitable estimates and regularity assumptions on the Green’s function, but not its explicit form. With this efficient general technique, we are able to treat various potentials.
Superoscillating functions and supershifts appear naturally in weak measurements in physics. Their evolution as initial conditions in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is an important and challenging problem in quantum mechanics and mathematical analysis. The concept that encodes the persistence of superoscillations during the evolution is the (more general) supershift property of the solution. In this paper, we give a unified approach to determine the supershift property for the solution of the time-dependent one-dimensional Schrödinger equation. The main advantage and novelty of our results is that they only require suitable estimates and regularity assumptions on the Green's function, but not its explicit form. With this efficient general technique, we are able to treat various potentials.
Time evolution of superoscillations for the Schrödinger equation on R∖{0}{\mathbb {R}}\setminus \{0\}R∖{0}
Abstract In quantum mechanics, superoscillations, or the more general supershifts, appear as initial conditions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. Already in [5], a unified approach was developed, which yields time persistence of the supershift property under certain holomorphicity and growth assumptions on the corresponding Green’s function. While that theory considers the Schrödinger equation on the whole real line R{\mathbb {R}}R R , this paper takes the natural next step and considers R∖{0}\mathbb {R}\setminus \{0\}R∖{0} R \ { 0 } , while allowing boundary conditions at x=0±x=0^\pm x=0± x = 0 ± . In particular, the singular 1x2\frac{1}{x^2}x21​ 1 x 2 -potential as well as the very important δ\delta δ δ and δ′\delta 'δ′ δ ′ distributional potentials are covered.
Weak measurements and the theory of weak values have a very deep meaning in quantum mechanics, and new phenomena associated with them has recently been observed experimentally. This theory has also directly led to the notion of superoscillating sequences of functions. In this paper we consider Cauchy problems with superoscillatory initial conditions (in particular, the Cauchy problem for the Schrödinger equation and some of its variations), and we give conditions under which the superoscillations persist in time. Our work is based on results from the theory of formal solutions to Cauchy problems and on the study of the specific growth of superoscillatory sequences, when regarded as functions of a complex variable. There are two main aims of this paper: one is to explain the mathematical tools that are necessary to study superoscillations, also repeating a few results that we have already proved in other papers in order to clarify the strategy. The second aim is to show that our technique applies to a large class of problems, showing under which conditions the superoscillatory phenomenon persists. Finally, we point out that our strategy can be applied also to non-constant coefficients differential equations as the quantum harmonic oscillator.
Schrödinger evolution of superoscillations with δ\delta δ- and δ′\delta 'δ′-potentials
Abstract In this paper, we study the time persistence of superoscillations as the initial data of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with δ\delta δ δ - and δ′\delta 'δ′ δ ′ -potentials. It is shown that the sequence of solutions converges uniformly on compact sets, whenever the initial data converge in the topology of the entire function space A1(C)A_1(\mathbb {C})A1​(C) A 1 ( C ) . Convolution operators acting in this space are our main tool. In particular, a general result about the existence of such operators is proven. Moreover, we provide an explicit formula as well as the large time asymptotics for the time evolution of a plane wave under δ\delta δ δ - and δ′\delta 'δ′ δ ′ -potentials.
In the past 50 years, quantum physicists have discovered, and experimentally demonstrated, a phenomenon which they termed superoscillations . Aharonov and his collaborators showed that superoscillations naturally arise when dealing with weak values, a notion that provides a fundamentally different way to regard measurements in quantum physics. From a mathematical point of view, superoscillating functions are a superposition of small Fourier components with a bounded Fourier spectrum, which result, when appropriately summed, in a shift that can be arbitrarily large, and well outside the spectrum. Purpose of this work is twofold: on one hand we provide a self-contained survey of the existing literature, in order to offer a systematic mathematical approach to superoscillations; on the other hand, we obtain some new and unexpected results, by showing that superoscillating sequences can be seen of as solutions to a large class of convolution equations and can therefore be treated within the theory of Analytically Uniform spaces. In particular, we will also discuss the persistence of the superoscillatory behavior when superoscillating sequences are taken as initial values of the Schrödinger equation and other equations.
The path-integral technique in quantum mechanics provides an intuitive framework for comprehending particle propagation and scattering. Calculating the propagator for the Aharonov-Bohm potential fits into the range of potentials in multiply-connected spaces, with the propagator represented through a series expansion. In this paper, we analyze the Schrödinger evolution of superoscillations, showing the supershift properties of the solution to the Schrödinger equation for this potential. Our proof is based on the continuity of particular infinite order differential operators acting on spaces of entire functions.