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arXiv:hep-ph/0411134 · Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields

Analytic approach to the wave packet formalism in oscillation phenomena

Alex E. Bernardini, Stefano De Leo

Published Sep 20, 2004• 22 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We introduce an approximation scheme to perform an analytic study of the oscillation phenomena in a pedagogical and comprehensive way. By using Gaussian wave packets, we show that the oscillation is bounded by a time-dependent vanishing function which characterizes the slippage between the mass-eigenstate wave packets. We also demonstrate that the wave packet spreading represents a secondary effect which plays a significant role only in the nonrelativistic limit. In our analysis, we note the presence of a new time-dependent phase and calculate how this additional term modifies the oscillating character of the flavor conversion formula. Finally, by considering box and sine wave packets we study how the choice of different functions to describe the particle localization changes the oscillation probability.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.70.053010

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We introduce an approximation scheme to perform an analytic study of the oscillation phenomena in a pedagogical and comprehensive way. By using Gaussian wave packets, we show that the oscillation is bounded by a time-dependent vanishing function which characterizes the slippage between the mass-eigenstate wave packets. We also demonstrate that the wave packet spreading represents a secondary effect which plays a significant role only in the nonrelativistic limit. In our analysis, we note the presence of a new time-dependent phase and calculate how this additional term modifies the oscillating character of the flavor conversion formula. Finally, by considering box and sine wave packets we study how the choice of different functions to describe the particle localization changes the oscillation probability.
We give a detailed analysis of the oscillation formula within the context of the wave packet formalism. Particular attention is made to insure flavor eigenstate creation in the physical cases (Delta p not equal 0). This requirement imposes non instantaneous particle creation in all frames. It is shown that the standard formula is not only exact when the mass wave packets have the same velocity, but it is a good approximation when minimal slippage occurs. For more general situations the oscillation formula contains additional arbitrary parameters, which allows for the unknown form of the wave packet envelope.
We give a detailed analysis of the oscillation formula within the context of the wave packet formalism. Particular attention is made to insure flavor eigenstate creation in the physical cases (Δp≠0). This requirement imposes noninstantaneous particle creation in all frames. It is shown that the standard formula is not only exact when the mass wave packets have the same velocity, but it is a good approximation when minimal slippage occurs. For more general situations the oscillation formula contains additional arbitrary parameters, which allows for the unknown form of the wave packet envelope.
We develop methodology for performing time dependent quantum mechanical calculations by representing the wave function as a sum of Gaussian wave packets (GWP) each characterized by a set of parameters such as width, position, momentum, and phase. The problem of computing the time evolution of the wave function is thus reduced to that of finding the time evolution of the parameters in the Gaussians. This parameter motion is determined by minimizing the error made by replacing the exact wave function in the time dependent Schrödinger equation with its Gaussian representation approximant. This leads to first order differential equations for the time dependence of the parameters, and those describing the packet position and the momentum of each packet have some resemblance with the classical equations of motion. The paper studies numerically the strategy needed to achieve the best GWP representation of time dependent processes. The issues discussed are the representation of the initial wave function, the numerical stability and the solution of the differential equations giving the evolution of the parameters, and the analysis of the final wave function. Extensive comparisons are made with an approximate method which assumes that the Gaussians are independent and their width is smaller than the length scale over which the potential changes. This approximation greatly simplifies the calculations and has the advantage of a greater resemblance to classical mechanics, thus being more intuitive. We find, however, that its range of applications is limited to problems involving localized degrees of freedom that participate in the dynamic process for a very short time. Finally we give particular attention to the notion that the GWP representation of the wave function reduces the dynamics of one quantum degree of freedom to that of a set of pseudoparticles (each represented by one packet) moving according to a pseudoclassical (i.e., classical-like) mechanics whose ‘‘phase space’’ is described by a position and momentum as well as a complex phase and width.
We seek a quantum-theoretic expression for the probability that a "fermionic" particle which is initially in a well-defined flavor, linear combination of mass-eigenstates, will be found, at later times, in another flavor state. We approach this problem by using the Dirac equation as evolution equation for the mass-eigenstates. The Dirac formalism is useful and essential in keeping clear many of the conceptual aspects of quantum oscillation phenomena that naturally arise in a relativistic spin one-half particle theory. Our study leads to the conclusion that the fermionic nature of the particles and the interference between positive and negative frequency components of mass-eigenstate wave packets modify the standard oscillation probability, obtained by implicitly assuming a "scalar" nature of the mass-eigenstates. Nevertheless, under particular assumptions, i.e. ultra-relativistic particles, strictly peaked momentum distributions and minimal slippage, these modifications introduce correction factors proportional to [Formula: see text] which are practically un-detectable by any experimental analysis.
A motion of a Gaussian wave packet of a single electron in a harmonic potential is obtained by solving the time dependent Schrödinger equation analytically. The analytic formula of the phase of the wave function which depends on both time and space is also presented explicitly. The probability density of the wave packet moves changing its width and central position periodically. The period of the change of the width is half of that of the central position. The interpretation of these periodic changes in terms of the Green's function which can be derived by the path integration formulation is also discussed.
The autocorrelation function, A(t), measures the overlap (in Hilbert space) of a time-dependent quantum mechanical wave function, psi(x,t), with its initial value, psi(x,0). It finds extensive use in the theoretical analysis and experimental measurement of such phenomena as quantum wave packet revivals. We evaluate explicit expressions for the autocorrelation function for time-dependent Gaussian solutions of the Schrodinger equation corresponding to the cases of a free particle, a particle undergoing uniform acceleration, a particle in a harmonic oscillator potential, and a system corresponding to an unstable equilibrium (the so-called `inverted' oscillator.) We emphasize the importance of momentum-space methods where such calculations are often more straightforwardly realized, as well as stressing their role in providing complementary information to results obtained using position-space wavefunctions.