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Physica Scripta

Metaplectic operator approach to Gutzwiller’s trace formula

Min-Ho Lee

Published Jan 25, 2023• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We derive the Gutzwiller’s trace formula by considering the time-evolution operator of the Hamiltonian which describes an N-dimensional time-dependent generalized harmonic oscillator with general force terms, where the time-evolution operator is composed of metaplectic and Weyl-Heisenberg operators. The Hamiltonian is constructed by expanding a wave packet quadratically in position and momentum operators around a reference trajectory. Using the explicit form of the metaplectic operator recently obtained in (2022, J. Korean Phys. Soc. 80, 95), we give the proof of the well known properties of the metaplectic operator, and using those properties, we derive Gutzwiller’s trace formula and investigate the Maslov index appearing in the formula.

DOI
10.1088/1402-4896/acb624

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math.APCross-listedarXiv:2601.22252•Feb 2, 2026
Abstract We derive the Gutzwiller’s trace formula by considering the time-evolution operator of the Hamiltonian which describes an N-dimensional time-dependent generalized harmonic oscillator with general force terms, where the time-evolution operator is composed of metaplectic and Weyl-Heisenberg operators. The Hamiltonian is constructed by expanding a wave packet quadratically in position and momentum operators around a reference trajectory. Using the explicit form of the metaplectic operator recently obtained in (2022, J. Korean Phys. Soc. 80, 95), we give the proof of the well known properties of the metaplectic operator, and using those properties, we derive Gutzwiller’s trace formula and investigate the Maslov index appearing in the formula.
The aim of this chapter is to construct the quantum unitary propagator for Hamiltonians which are quadratic in position and momentum with time-dependent coefficients. We show that the quantum evolution is exactly solvable in terms of the classical flow which is linear. This allows to construct the metaplectic transformations which are unitary operators in L2(Rn)L^2(\mathbb R^n)L2(Rn) corresponding to symplectic transformations. Simple examples of such metaplectic transformations are the Fourier transform, which corresponds to the symplectic matrix J defined in (3.4) and the propagator of the harmonic oscillator, corresponding to rotations in the phase space. The main results of this chapter are computations of the quantum evolution operators for quadratic Hamiltonians acting on coherent states. We show that the time evolved coherent states are still Gaussian states which are recognized to be squeezed states centered at the classical phase space point (see Chap. 8). From these computations we can deduce most of properties concerning quantum quadratic Hamiltonians. In particular we get the explicit form of the Weyl symbols of the metaplectic transformations. These formulae are generalizations of the Mehler formula for the harmonic oscillator. Quadratic Hamiltonians are very important in quantum mechanics because more general Hamiltonians can be considered as non trivial perturbations of time dependent quadratic ones as we shall see in Chap. 5.
The definition and some general properties of the generalized Weyl correspondence between stochastic processes and operator-valued real functions on a Hilbert space plus a trace class operator are given. The relation between the derivatives of an operator-valued function and the derivative of the corresponding stochastic process are studied. When the operator-valued function is the position (or momentum) in the Heisenberg picture, a condition for the positivity of the joint distribution functions of the corresponding process is given, provided that the evolution Hamiltonian be quadratic in the position and momentum. Finally, the case of an arbitrary Hamiltonian evolution for the position operator is studied and the two-dimensional density functions of the process is related to the Wigner function associated to some state ρ̂, and a necessary condition for the positivity of the densities is given.
Abstract We derive semiclassical trace formulae including Gutzwiller's trace formula using coherent states. This formulation has several advantages over the usual coordinate‐space formulation. Using a coherent‐state basis makes it immediately obvious that classical periodic orbits make separate contributions to the trace of the quantum‐mechanical time evolution operator. In addition, our approach is manifestly canonically invariant at all stages, and leads to the simplest possible derivation of Gutzwiller's formula.
We derive semiclassical trace formulae including Gutzwiller's trace formula using coherent states. This formulation has several advantages over the usual coordinate-space formulation. Using a coherent-state basis makes it immediately obvious that classical periodic orbits make separate contributions to the trace of the quantum-mechanical time evolution operator. In addition, our approach is manifestly canonically invariant at all stages, and leads to the simplest possible derivation of Gutzwiller's formula.
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.
We develop a systematic analysis of the metaplectic semigroup Mp+(d,C)\mathrm{Mp}_+(d,\mathbb{C})Mp+​(d,C) associated with positive complex symplectic matrices, a notion introduced almost simultaneously and independently by Hörmander, Brunet, Kramer, and Howe, thereby extending the classical metaplectic theory beyond the unitary setting. While the existing literature has largely focused on propagators of quadratic evolution equations, for which results are typically obtained via Mehler formulas, our approach is operator-theoretic and symplectic in spirit and adapts techniques from the standard metaplectic group Mp(d,R)\mathrm{Mp}(d,\mathbb{R})Mp(d,R) to a substantially broader framework that is not driven by differential problems or particular propagators. This point of view provides deeper insight into the structure of the metaplectic semigroup, and allows us to investigate its generators, polar decomposition, and intertwining relations with complex conjugation and with the Wigner distribution. We then exploit these structural results to characterize, from a metaplectic perspective, classes of time-frequency representations satisfying prescribed structural properties. Finally, we discuss further implications for parabolic equations with complex quadratic Hamiltonians, we study the boundedness of their propagators on modulation spaces, we obtain estimates in time of their operator norms. Finally, we apply our theory to the study of propagation of Wigner singularities.