The paper develops the idea that the dynamics of both classical and quantum processes is time reversible. It is shown how this classical analogy allows one to define the measure for the path integral in quantum mechanics.
It was an interested and important problem to give the description of quantization, i.e. of passing from classical physical systems to the corresponding quantum ones, from the moment that quantum mechanics came into existence. In the end we succeeded in giving it as follows: Let L be a Lagrangian function. Then the Hamiltonian function H is defined through the Legendre transformation of L. The Hamiltonian operator ( ) at time in quantum mechanics is defined from H. It should be noted that ( ) has ordering ambiguities (cf. [14]). Let be a probability amplitude at time . Then its temporal evolution can be given by the solution of the Schrodinger equation
We propose a new approach concerning the introduction of time-irreversibility in statistical mechanics. It is based on a transition function defined in terms of path integral and verifying a time-irreversible equation. We show first how dynamic processes may enter in the description of equilibrium states. In order to do that a characteristic time is associated with closed paths. For large isolated systems at equilibrium or for systems in contact with a thermostat our results are identical with those obtained with the Gibbs ensemble methods. For a model used in the microscopic approaches of the brownian motion no new basic assumption is required to predict a transition from a quantum state to a classical one exhibiting a time-irreversible behavior. This demonstration is sufficient to show that very well accepted approximations can lead to time-irreversible behaviors for a large class of systems. The difference between our work and the system+reservoir approaches is underlined. Here equilibrium states and irreversible processes are described on the same footing representing a progress in the question of time-irreversibility in statistical physics. The transition function is also used for describing a small system for which there is no thermodynamics. By adding to the transition function a second one characterizing the reverse motion we may describe time-reversible systems. In a simple case we replace two real valued transition functions by a complex function verifying a Schrodinger like equation. From this we see how to break the time-reversibility of this equation and how to investigate the connection quantum mechanics-thermodynamics from a very fundamental point of view.
Introduction In this chapter I attempt to review a few somewhat loosely connected themes, which figure in recent work by physicists on decoherence and irreversibility in quantum mechanics. The looseness is forced upon us by the subject – any proper discussion inevitably drags in questions about thermodynamic reversibility and the various arrows of time, about the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum measurement, about the nature of quantum coherence, and about the relationship between quantum and classical mechanics. There are inevitably many gaps in our understanding of these questions, both for the physicist and for the philosopher. Some philosophers may feel that the subject is too immature to be interesting to them – that it is not yet ripe for philosophical analysis. Indeed I have recently heard the opinion expressed that quantum mechanics in its entirety was still not amenable to such analysis – that if the physicists could not yet understand it, there was no point in philosophers trying! I hope this feeling is not too widespread amongst philosophers of science – I suspect that it may arise in part because the philosophical community (along with a good part of the scientific community) is unaware of some important advances that have been made in the last decade in understanding the physics of quantum processes at the macroscopic level, as well as the relation between classical and quantum mechanics. Much of the chapter is therefore unashamedly tutorial in nature; however, given the wide range of topics covered, I imagine that even physicists will find at least some of the material to be novel.
The conventional approach to quantum mechanics begins with the classical Hamiltonian and changes observables to noncommuting operators. Canonically conjugate observables have to be noncommuting operators in order to satisfy the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The dynamics of a quantum mechanical system is given by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. In the early 1940s Feynman realized that it would be possible to construct a quantum model using the classical Lagrangian approach (a method closely related to the action integral). Dirac had earlier pointed out that eit times the Lagrangian was analogous to a transformation function for the wave function in which the wave function at one instant could be related to the wave function at a next instant in a time interval of t by multiplying with such an exponential function. Feynman found the exponential phase factor to be the action S which is the time integral of the Lagrangian. Further, he noticed that it was necessary to perform integrals over all space variables at every instant of time to find the transition amplitudes. He developed a way for describing and evaluating the integration using the idea of integral over all paths. In Feynman’s approach, the particles are described using amplitudes calculated along the paths they may or may not follow. These amplitudes behave like waves, their phase changes as the quantum system moves along the path and the amplitudes for all paths superpose and interfere. This interference between all paths is called as sum-over-histories and the resulting amplitude is connected in the same way that the amplitude of a wave function is linked to probability as magnitude-squared.
In this thesis we are investigating a different formalism of non-relativistic quantum mechanics called the path integral formalism.It is a generalization of the classical least action principle.The introduction to this subject begins with the construction of the path integral in terms of the idea of probability amplitudes whose absolute square gives the probability of finding a system in a particular state.Then we show that if the Lagrangian is a quadratic form one needs only to calculate the classical action besides from a time-dependent normalization constant to find the explicit expression of the path integral.We look in to the subject of two kinds of slit-experiments: The square slit, the single-and the double-Gaussian slit.Also, the propagator for constrained paths is calculated and applied to the Aharonov-Bohm effect, which shows that the vector potential defined in classical electrodynamics have a physical meaning in quantum mechanics.It is also shown that the path integral formulation is equivalent to the Schrödinger description of quantum mechanics, by deriving the Schrödinger equation from the path integral.Further applications of the path integral are discussed.