In this work the conditions appearing in the so-called WKB approximation formalism of quantum mechanics are analyzed. It is shown that, in general, a careful definition of an approximation method requires the introduction of two length parameters, one of them always considered in the textbooks on quantum mechanics, whereas the other is usually neglected. Afterwards we define a particular family of potentials and prove, resorting to the aforementioned length parameters, that we may find an energy which is a lower bound to the ground energy of the system. The idea is applied to the case of a harmonic oscillator and also to a particle freely falling in a homogeneous gravitational field, and in both cases the consistency of our method is corroborated. This approach, together with the so-called Rayleigh–Ritz formalism, allows us to define an energy interval in which the ground energy of any potential, belonging to our family, must lie.
We present a systematic study of the Rayleigh--Ritz variational method for quantum oscillators in the Segal--Bargmann space. We rigorously derive the normalizability condition
∣α∣<21 for generalized Gaussian trial functions
ψ(z)=eαz2+βz through convergence analysis of Gaussian integrals in the complex plane. Applications to the harmonic oscillator demonstrate exact recovery of the ground state in Segal--Bargmann space when the trial family contains the true solution. For the quartic anharmonic oscillator (
H^=−21∂x2+21x2+λx4), adaptive Gaussian ansätze in position space yield a cubic stationarity equation and perturbative energy expansions beyond first order, capturing anharmonic wavefunction narrowing. In contrast, monomial trial functions (
ψn(z)=zn) in the Segal--Bargmann space -- while providing rigorous upper bounds
En=n+21+43λ(2n2+2n+1) for excited states -- lack width adaptability and are limited to first-order accuracy for ground-state calculations. We further analyze displaced Gaussians and displaced monomials for asymmetric potentials (e.g.,
x3+x4), showing that displacement parameters are essential to capture parity breaking and stabilization effects (
E0≈21+43μ−49λ2+⋯).
Abstract We obtain accurate eigenvalues of the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation with a Hamiltonian of the form H g = H + gδ(x), where δ(x) is the Dirac delta function. We show that the well known Rayleigh–Ritz variational method is a suitable approach provided that the basis set takes into account the effect of the Dirac delta on the wavefunction. Present analysis may be suitable for an introductory course on quantum mechanics to illustrate the application of the Rayleigh–Ritz variational method to a problem where the boundary conditions play a relevant role and have to be introduced carefully into the trial function. Besides, the examples are suitable for motivating the students to resort to any computer-algebra software in order to calculate the required integrals and solve the secular equations.
Quantum phase transitions affecting the structure of ground and excited states of integrable systems with the Mexican-hat type potential are shown to be related to a singular torus of classical orbits passing the point of unstable equilibrium. As a specific example, we consider nuclear collective vibrations described by the O(6)–U(5) transitional Hamiltonian of the interacting boson model. While all states with zero values of the O(5) invariant undergo a continuous phase transition when crossing the energy of unstable equilibrium, the other states evolve in an analytic way.
Abstract There are several concepts of what constitutes the analytical solution of a quantum model, as opposed to the mere “numerically exact” one. This applies even if one considers only the determination of the discrete spectrum of the corresponding Hamiltonian, setting aside such important questions as the asymptotic dynamics for long times. In the simplest case, the spectrum can be given in closed form, the eigenvalues
Ej,j=0,…,N≤∞ E j , j = 0 , … , N ≤ ∞ read
Ej=f(j,{pk}) E j = f ( j , { p k } ) , where f is a known function of the label
j∈N0 j ∈ N 0 and the
{pk} { p k } are a set of numbers parameterizing the Hamilton operator. This kind of solution exists only in cases where the classical limit of the model is Liouville-integrable. Some quantum-mechanical many-body systems allow the determination of the spectrum in terms of auxiliary parameters
[{kj},{nl}] [ { k j } , { n l } ] as
E({nl})=f({kj({nl})}) E ( { n l } ) = f ( { k j ( { n l } ) } ) where the
{kj({nl})} { k j ( { n l } ) } satisfy a coupled set of transcendental equations, following from a certain ansatz for the eigenfunctions. These systems (integrable in the sense of Yang-Baxter (Eckle 2019)) may have a Hilbert space dimension growing exponentially with the system size L, i.e.,
N∼eL N ∼ e L . The simple enumeration of the energies with the label j is replaced by the multi-index
{nl} { n l } . Although no priori knowledge about the spectrum is available, its statistical properties can be computed exactly (Berry and Tabor 1977). Other integrable and also non-integrable models exist where N depends polynomially on L and the energies
Ej E j are the zeroes of an analytically computable transcendental function, the so-called G-function
G(E,{pk}) G ( E ,