We study the application of the coherent-state path integral as a numerical tool for wave-packet propagation. The numerical evaluation of path integrals is reduced to a matrix-vector multiplication scheme. Together with a split-operator technique we apply our method to a time-dependent double-well potential.
The numerical evaluation of coherent-state path integrals for quantum dynamical problems is discussed for one-dimensional examples. To propagate an initial state, we use the normal and antinormal ordered coherent-state path integrals combined with a split-operator technique dividing the Hamiltonian into harmonic and anharmonic parts. For numerical purposes integrations must be approximated by quadrature formulae. This leads to a matrix multiplication scheme which is systematically tested for the double-well and Morse potentials. The method is accurate for propagation times much longer than the natural time scale of the system, and it allows for short as well as long time steps without loss of stability.
A previous initial value coherent state representation is applied to Gaussian wave packet propagation on one-dimensional and two-dimensional double well potentials. The method uses a basis of trajectory guided frozen Gaussian coherent states, sampled from a Monte Carlo ensemble, for numerical solutions of the quantum time dependent integro-differential Schrödinger equation. Accurate tunneling splittings are obtained. Comparisons are also made with corresponding results obtained by the Herman–Kluk semiclassical initial value representation wave packet method.
We study the application of the semiclassical coherent-state path-integral technique to the problem of scattering. A numerical method based on initial-value trajectories and their stability information is proposed to solve the root search for the complex trajectories that determine the semiclassical propagator. Very good agreement between the numerically exact quantum and semiclassical results for the correlation function can be achieved for scattering from one-dimensional barrier as well as well-type potentials by using just one single complex trajectory at each time.
Numerical solutions of the quantum time-dependent integro-differential Schrödinger equation in a coherent state Husimi representation are investigated. Discretization leads to propagation on a grid of nonorthogonal coherent states without the need to invert an overlap matrix, with the further advantage of a sparse Hamiltonian matrix. Applications are made to the evolution of a Gaussian wave packet in a Morse potential. Propagation on a static rectangular grid is fast and accurate. Results are also presented for a moving rectangular grid, guided at its center by a mean classical path, and for a classically guided moving grid of individual coherent states taken from a Monte Carlo ensemble.
Gray and Verosky have recently studied the reformulation of the N-state matrix representation of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation as an N-degrees of freedom classical Hamiltonian system. This opens the possibility of using in quantum dynamics numerical integrators originally devised for classical mechanics. When the Hamiltonian matrix is time-dependent, Gray and Verosky suggest the use of a Magnus approximation before reducing the quantum system to its classical format. We show that Magnus approximations are not necessary and suggest an alternative technique. With the new technique it is possible to obtain simple integrators of arbitrarily high orders of accuracy that can be applied to all matrix Schrödinger problems with a, possibly time-dependent, real Hamiltonian matrix. The connection between the new approach and high-order split-operator methods is studied.