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Annalen der Physik

Effective descriptions of complex quantum systems: path integrals and operator ordering problems

Ulrich Eckern, Mark Gruber, P. Schwab

Published Aug 18, 2005• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Dedicated to Bernhard Mühlschlegel on the occasion of his 80th birthday We study certain aspects of the effective, occasionally called collective, description of complex quantum systems within the framework of the path integral formalism, in which the environment is integrated out. Generalising the standard Feynman‐Vernon Caldeira‐Leggett model to include a non‐linear coupling between “particle” and environment, and considering a particular spectral density of the coupling, a coordinate‐dependent mass (or velocity‐dependent potential) is obtained. The related effective quantum theory, which depends on the proper discretisation of the path integral, is derived and discussed. As a result, we find that in general a simple effective low‐energy Hamiltonian, in which only the coordinate‐dependent mass enters, cannot be formulated. The quantum theory of weakly coupled superconductors and the quantum dynamics of vortices in Josephson junction arrays are physical examples where these considerations, in principle, are of relevance.

DOI
10.1002/andp.200551709-1006

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Dedicated to Bernhard Mühlschlegel on the occasion of his 80th birthday We calculate the local Green function for a quantum-mechanical particle with hopping between nearest and next-nearest neighbors on the Bethe lattice, where the on-site energies may alternate on sublattices. For infinite connectivity the renormalized perturbation expansion is carried out by counting all non-self-intersecting paths, leading to an implicit equation for the local Green function. By integrating out branches of the Bethe lattice the same equation is obtained from a path integral approach for the partition function. This also provides the local Green function for finite connectivity. Finally, a recently developed topological approach is extended to derive an operator identity which maps the problem onto the case of only nearest-neighbor hopping. We find in particular that hopping between next-nearest neighbors leads to an asymmetric spectrum with additional van-Hove singularities.

Annalen der Physik•Aug 18, 2005•0 citations
Abstract Dedicated to Bernhard Mühlschlegel on the occasion of his 80th birthday We study certain aspects of the effective, occasionally called collective, description of complex quantum systems within the framework of the path integral formalism, in which the environment is integrated out. Generalising the standard Feynman‐Vernon Caldeira‐Leggett model to include a non‐linear coupling between “particle” and environment, and considering a particular spectral density of the coupling, a coordinate‐dependent mass (or velocity‐dependent potential) is obtained. The related effective quantum theory, which depends on the proper discretisation of the path integral, is derived and discussed. As a result, we find that in general a simple effective low‐energy Hamiltonian, in which only the coordinate‐dependent mass enters, cannot be formulated. The quantum theory of weakly coupled superconductors and the quantum dynamics of vortices in Josephson junction arrays are physical examples where these considerations, in principle, are of relevance.
We study certain aspects of the effective, occasionally called collective, description of complex quantum systems within the framework of the path integral formalism, in which the environment is integrated out. Generalising the standard Feynman-Vernon Caldeira-Leggett model to include a non-linear coupling between ``particle'' and environment, and considering a particular spectral density of the coupling, a coordinate-dependent mass (or velocity-dependent potential) is obtained. The related effective quantum theory, which depends on the proper discretisation of the path integral, is derived and discussed. As a result, we find that in general a simple effective low-energy Hamiltonian, in which only the coordinate-dependent mass enters, cannot be formulated. The quantum theory of weakly coupled superconductors and the quantum dynamics of vortices in Josephson junction arrays are physical examples where these considerations, in principle, are of relevance.
We study certain aspects of the effective, occasionally called collective, description of complex quantum systems within the framework of the path integral formalism, in which the environment is integrated out. Generalising the standard Feynman-Vernon Caldeira-Leggett model to include a non-linear coupling between “particle ” and environment, and considering a particular spectral density of the coupling, a coordinatedependent mass (or velocity-dependent potential) is obtained. The related effective quantum theory, which depends on the proper discretisation of the path integral, is derived and discussed. As a result, we find that in general a simple effective low-energy Hamiltonian, in which only the coordinate-dependent mass enters, cannot be formulated. The quantum theory of weakly coupled superconductors and the quantum dynamics of vortices in Josephson junction arrays are physical examples where these considerations, in principle, are of relevance. 1
We present a theory for the dynamical evolution of a quantum system coupled to a complex many-body intrinsic system (environment). By modeling the intrinsic many-body system with parametric random matrices, we study the types of effective stochastic models that emerge from random matrix theory. Using the Feynman-Vernon path integral formalism, we derive the influence functional and obtain either analytical or numerical solutions for the time evolution of the entire quantum system. We discuss thoroughly the structure of the solutions for some representative cases and make connections to well known limiting results, particularly to Brownian motion, Kramers classical limit, and the Caldeira-Leggett approach.
This chapter constructs path integrals for general Hamiltonians with potentials linear in the velocities, like Hamiltonians of particles in a magnetic field. Two examples are considered: a quantum system coupled to a magnetic field, and diffusion as described by the Fokker-Planck equation. In both examples, the Hamiltonian contains products of the position and momentum operators. A quantization problem then arises since these operators do not commute, and the correspondence principle is no longer sufficient to determine the quantum Hamiltonian. The order between quantum operators is determined by additional conditions, such as hermiticity or conservation of probabilities. The calculation of the corresponding path integral then suffers from ambiguities, directly related to this quantization problem. The continuum limit is no longer unique, but depends on the limiting process. This chapter also considers a situation where space has a nontrivial topology, in this case a circle, and shows how this influences the calculation of the path integral.
Introduction Preliminary remarks The path integral formalism is one of the most important tools in modern theoretical physics. Integration in functional spaces was considered for the first time by Norbert Wiener in his studies of diffusion processes [60, 61]. The corresponding integration measure is now known as the Wiener measure, i.e. the so-called Gaussian path integrals were studied. In quantum mechanics, functional integrals were introduced by R. Feynmann [62, 63] who was inspired by important observations due to P. A. M. Dirac concerning a relation between wave function and classical action [64, 65]. In modern physics the path integral formalism is applied not only to developing a quantum description for systems with infinitely many degrees of freedom as, for example, in quantum field theories or condensed matter physics, but also to ordinary quantum mechanical problems. Moreover there is a tendency to reformulate standard quantum mechanical problems (such as a particle in a “box” or potential well [66, 67], or a particle in the Coulomb field [68]) within the framework of the path integral method. The reason for doing this is rather obvious: physicists develop a new mathematical tool, a new language and, in order to comprehend all of its subtleties, it is necessary to investigate as many concrete examples as possible. Use of the path integral formalism is widespread in quantum field theory because it is the most adequate mathematical tool for a wide range of problems which allows, not only for elegant formulation of problems, but also for a great deal of simplification of their theoretical analysis.
Dedicated to Bernhard Mühlschlegel on the occasion of his 80th birthday We calculate the local Green function for a quantum-mechanical particle with hopping between nearest and next-nearest neighbors on the Bethe lattice, where the on-site energies may alternate on sublattices. For infinite connectivity the renormalized perturbation expansion is carried out by counting all non-self-intersecting paths, leading to an implicit equation for the local Green function. By integrating out branches of the Bethe lattice the same equation is obtained from a path integral approach for the partition function. This also provides the local Green function for finite connectivity. Finally, a recently developed topological approach is extended to derive an operator identity which maps the problem onto the case of only nearest-neighbor hopping. We find in particular that hopping between next-nearest neighbors leads to an asymmetric spectrum with additional van-Hove singularities.