Fractals and quantum mechanics

A new application of a fractal concept to quantum physics has been developed. The fractional path integrals over the paths of the Levy flights are defined. It is shown that if fractality of the Brownian trajectories leads to standard quantum mechanics, then the fractality of the Levy paths leads to fractional quantum mechanics. The fractional quantum mechanics has been developed via the new fractional path integrals approach. A fractional generalization of the Schrodinger equation has been discovered. The new relationship between the energy and the momentum of the nonrelativistic fractional quantum-mechanical particle has been established, and the Levy wave packet has been introduced into quantum mechanics. The equation for the fractional plane wave function has been found. We have derived a free particle quantum-mechanical kernel using Fox's H-function. A fractional generalization of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation has been found. As physical applications of the fractional quantum mechanics we have studied a free particle in a square infinite potential well, the fractional "Bohr atom" and have developed a new fractional approach to the QCD problem of quarkonium. We also discuss the relationships between fractional and the well-known Feynman path integral approaches to quantum mechanics. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.     

Nonlocal conserved quantities,balance laws,and equations of motion

A formalism is developed whereby balance laws are directly obtained from nonlocal (integrodifferential) linear second-order equations of motion for systems described by several dependent variables. These laws augment the equations of motion as further useful information about the physical system and, under certain conditions, are shown to reduce to conservation laws. The formalism can be applied to physical systems whose equations of motion may be relativistic and either classical or quantum. It is shown to facilitate obtaining global conservation laws for quantities which include energy and momentum. Applications of the formalism are given for a nonlocal Schrödinger equation and for a system of local relativistic equations of motion describing particles of arbitrary integral spin.     

Relativistic quantum mechanics of supersymmetric particles

The quantum mechanics of an electron in an external field is developed by Hamiltonian path integral methods. The electron is described classically by an action which is invariant under gauge supersymmetry transformations as well as worldline reparametrizations. The simpler case of a spinless particle is first reviewed and it is pointed out that a strictly canonical approach does not exist. This follows formally from the gauge invariance properties of the action and physically it corresponds to the fact that particles can travel backwards as well as forward in coordinate time. However, appropriate application of path integral techniques yields directly the proper time representation of the Feynman propagator. Next we extend the formalism to systems described by anticommuting variables. This problem presents some difficulty when the dimension of the phase space is odd, because the holomorphic representation does not exist. It is shown, however, that the usual connection between the evolution operator and the path integral still holds provided one indludes in the action the boundary term that makes the classical variational principle well defined. The path integral for the relativistic spinning particle is then evaluated and it is shown to lead directly to a representation for the Feynman propagator in terms of two proper times, one commuting, the other anticommuting, which appear in a symmetric manner. This representation is used to derive scattering amplitudes in an external field. In this step the anticommuting proper time is integrated away and the analysis is carried in terms of one (commuting) proper time only, just as in the spinless case. Finally, some properties of the quantum mechanics of the ghost particles that appear in the path integral for constrained systems are developed in an appendix.     

Stochastic quantization and detailed balance in Fokker-Planck dynamics

The path integral and operator formulations of the Fokker-Planck equation are considered as stochastic quantizations of underlying Euler-Lagrange equations. The operator formalism is derived from the path integral formalism. It is proved that the Euler-Lagrange equations are invariant under time reversal if detailed balance holds and it is shown that the irreversible behavior is introduced through the stochastic quantization. To obtain these results for the nonconstant diffusion Fokker-Planck equation, a transformation is introduced to reduce it to a constant diffusion Fokker-Planck equation. Critical comments are made on the stochastic formulation of quantum mechanics.     

The Canonical Path Integral Quantization of CP1 Model

The Hamilton-Jacobi method of quantizing singular systems is discussed. The equations of motion are obtained as total differential equations in many variables. It is shown that if the system is integrable, then one can obtain the canonical phase space coordinates and the set of the canonical Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equations without any need to introduce unphysical auxiliary fields. As an example we quantize the CP¹ model using the canonical path integral quantization formalism to obtain the path integral as an integration over the canonical phase-space coordinates.     

Many-times formalism and Coulomb interaction

We extend here the many-times formalism, formerly used mainly for particles moving in given classical fields, to interacting particles. In order to minimize the difficulties associated with an equal-time interaction, we limit ourselves to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and a two-particle interaction, such as that corresponding to the Coulomb force between charged particles. We obtain a set of differential equations which are really not consistent, but they serve as a guide to a formulation in terms of integral equations that has the same perturbation expansion as the usual theory for the scattering of particles. The integral equation for two-particle amplitudes can be modified to give the correct theory for bound states, but this is not the case for more than two particles. We expect that this theory can be generalized to a formulation of relativistic quantum mechanics of interacting particles.     

Particle Dynamics of a Phase Space Distribution Function

No Heading A hydrodynamic analogy for quantum mechanics is used to develop a phase-space representation in terms of a quasi-probability distribution function. Averages over phase space using this approach agree with the usual expectation values of quantum mechanics for a certain class of observables. We also derive the equations of motion that particles in an ensemble would have in phase space in order to mimic the time development of this probability distribution, thus giving the position and momentum of particles in the ensemble as a function of time. The equations of motion separate into position and momentum components. The position component reproduces the de Broglie-Bohm equation of motion. As a simple example, we calculate the phase space trajectories and entropy of a free particle wave packet.     

Path Integral Solution for a Dirac Particle in Non-Abelian SU(N) Gauge Field

The propagator of a Dirac particle in interaction with a non-Abelian SU(N) gauge field is determined according to the path integral formalism of Alexandrou et al. by using the representation so called “local projection” and the wave functions are extracted. Furthermore, it is shown that certain selected equations obtained during the integrations can also be classically derived.     

Letter: Path Integral Quantization of 2D-Gravity

2D-gravity is investigated using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. The equations of motion and the action integral are obtained as total differential equations in many variables. The integrability conditions lead us to obtain the path integral quantization without any need to introduce any extra un-physical variables.     

Canonical Quantization of Systems with Time-Dependent Constraints

The Hamilton-Jacobi method of constrained systems is discussed. The equations of motion for a singular system with time dependent constraints are obtained as total differential equations in many variables. The integrability conditions for the relativistic particle in a plane wave lead us to obtain the canonical phase space coordinates without using any gauge fixing condition. As a result of the quantization, we get the Klein-Gordon theory for a particle in a plane wave. The path integral quantization for this system is obtained using the canonical path integral formulation method.     

Path Integral Formulation of Fractionally Perturbed Lagrangian Oscillators on Fractal

Fractional path integration and particles trajectories in fractional dimensional space are motivating issues in quantum mechanics and kinetics. In this paper, a fractional path integral characterized by a fractional propagator is developed based on the framework of the fractional action-like variational approach. A fractional generalization of the free particle problem is found, the corresponding fractional Schrödinger equation is derived and a fractional path integral formulation of harmonic oscillators characterized by a perturbed Lagrangian is constructed after reducing the fractional action to an integral action on fractal. The new fractal-like path integral offers a number of motivating features which are discussed and analyzed. The main outcome is connected to the possibility of constructing on a fractal a path integral for the oscillators characterized by modified ground energy. In particular for low-temperature case, the fractional perturbed oscillator is characterized by a free energy larger than the standard value \( E_{0} = {{\hbar \omega } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{\hbar \omega } 2}} \right. \kern-0pt} 2}.\) Such an increase in the ground energy generalizes the uncertainty principle without involving differentiable paths or even invoking new phenomenological theories based on deformed algebra.     

Stacking interactions in denaturation of DNA fragments

A mesoscopic model for heterogeneous DNA denaturation is developed in the framework of the path integral formalism. The base pair stretchings are treated as one-dimensional, time-dependent paths contributing to the partition function. The size of the paths ensemble, which measures the degree of cooperativity of the system, is computed versus temperature consistently with the model potential physical requirements. It is shown that the ensemble size strongly varies with the molecule backbone stiffness providing a quantitative relation between stacking and features of the melting transition. The latter is an overall smooth crossover which begins from the adenine-thymine-rich portions of the fragment. The harmonic stacking coupling shifts, along the T -axis, the occurrence of the multistep denaturation but it does not change the character of the crossover. The methods to compute the fractions of open base pairs versus temperature are discussed: by averaging the base pair displacements over the path ensemble, we find that such fractions signal the multisteps of the transition in good agreement with the indications provided by the specific heat plots.     

General N-Body Theory of Nonrelativistic Quantum Scattering

 The two-Hilbert-space theory of scattering is reviewed with particular reference to its application to nonrelativistic multichannel quantum- mechanical scattering theory. In Part I the abstract assumptions of the theory are collected, transition operators (both on- and off-energy-shell) are defined, the dynamical equations that determine the off-shell transition operators are presented and their real-energy limits examined, and the convergence of sequences of approximate transition operators is established. A section on how to incorporate group symmetries into the formalism reports new work. The material of Part I is relevant to a variety of both classical and quantum scattering systems. In Part II attention is directed specifically to N-body nonrelativistic quantum scattering systems in which the particles interact via short-range pair potentials. A method of constructing approximate transition operators is presented and shown to satisfy all the abstract assumptions of Part I. The dynamical equations that determine the half-on-shell approximate transition operators are shown to be coupled one-dimensional integral equations that have compact kernels and unique solutions when considered as operators on a Hilbert space of H?lder continuous functions. Moreover, the on-shell parts of those approximate transition amplitudes are shown to converge to the exact on-shell amplitudes as the order of the approximation increases. Detailed formulas for the kernels of the integral equations are written down for systems of particles that are distinguishable and for systems containing identical particles. Finally, some important open problems are described. Received July 2, 1999; accepted in final form October 27, 1999     

Dirac particle in the presence of a plane waveand constant magnetic fields: path integral approach

The Green function (GF) related to the problem of a Dirac particle interacting with a plane wave and constant magnetic fields is calculated in the framework of a path integral via the Alexandrou et al. formalism according to the so-called global projection. As a calculation tool, we introduce two identities (constraints) into this formalism; their main role is the reduction of the dimension of the integral and the emergence in a natural way of some classical paths and, due to the existence of a constant electromagnetic field, we have used the technique of fluctuations. Hence the calculation of the GF is reduced to a known Gaussian integral plus a contribution from the effective classical action.Received: 22 January 2005, Revised: 16 May 2005, Published online: 9 August 2005     

Fuzzy amplitude densities and stochastic quantum mechanics

Fuzzy amplitude densities are employed to obtain probability distributions for measurements that are not perfectly accurate. The resulting quantum probability theory is motivated by the path integral formalism for quantum mechanics. Measurements that are covariant relative to a symmetry group are considered. It is shown that the theory includes traditional as well as stochastic quantum mechanics.     

Classical geometry to quantum behavior correspondence in a virtual extra dimension

In the Lorentz invariant formalism of compact space–time dimensions the assumption of periodic boundary conditions represents a consistent semi-classical quantization condition for relativistic fields. In Dolce (2011) [18] we have shown, for instance, that the ordinary Feynman path integral is obtained from the interference between the classical paths with different winding numbers associated with the cyclic dynamics of the field solutions. By means of the boundary conditions, the kinematical information of interactions can be encoded on the relativistic geometrodynamics of the boundary, see Dolce (2012) [8]. Furthermore, such a purely four-dimensional theory is manifestly dual to an extra-dimensional field theory. The resulting correspondence between extra-dimensional geometrodynamics and ordinary quantum behavior can be interpreted in terms of AdS/CFT correspondence. By applying this approach to a simple Quark–Gluon–Plasma freeze-out model we obtain fundamental analogies with basic aspects of AdS/QCD phenomenology.     

LETTER: Entropy Using Path Integrals for Quantum Black Hole Models

Canonical quantum gravity has been used in the search for eigenvalue equations that could describe black holes. In this paper we choose one of the simplest of these quantum equations to show how the usual Feynman's path integral approach can be applied to get the corresponding statistical properties. We get a logarithmic correction to the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy as already obtained by other authors by other means.     

Theory of resonance pressure broadening: Resolvent operator formalism and classical path approximation

The problem of resonance pressure broadening of spectral lines in monatomic gases is discussed using a resolvent operator formalism. A differential equation is developed to determine the resolvent, and it is shown how its solution for a limiting case yields the familiar classical path approximation for the translational motion of the atoms, and how quantum corrections may be systematically studied. Commonly used limiting cases within the classical path approximation (two-body static and impact approximations) are also exhibited as limiting cases, with methods for systematic evaluation of corrections. Closed form solutions are obtained for the two-body static and impact cases. The results are compared with available experimental data, and generally satisfactory agreement is obtained. Of some theoretical interest is the formalism, which embraces all the usual approximations and permits them to be studied together with corrections to them from a unified point of view. New results of more practical interest are the closed form solutions for the limiting cases, and the estimation of the lowest-order quantum corrections, which are appreciable under some experimental conditions.Supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Grant GP 7552.Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.     

Spacetime path formalism for massive particles of any spin

Earlier work presented spacetime path formalism for relativistic quantum mechanics arising naturally from the fundamental principles of the Born probability rule, superposition, and spacetime translation invariance. The resulting formalism can be seen as a foundation for a number of previous parametrized approaches to relativistic quantum mechanics in the literature. Because time is treated similarly to the three-space coordinates, rather than as an evolution parameter, such approaches have proved particularly useful in the study of quantum gravity and cosmology. The present paper extends the foundational spacetime path formalism to include massive, non-scalar particles of any (integer or half-integer) spin. This is done by generalizing the principle of translational invariance used in the scalar case to the principle of full Poincaré invariance, leading to a formulation for the non-scalar propagator in terms of a path integral over the Poincaré group. Once the difficulty of the non-compactness of the component Lorentz group is dealt with, the subsequent development is remarkably parallel to the scalar case. This allows the formalism to retain a clear probabilistic interpretation throughout, with a natural reduction to non-relativistic quantum mechanics closely related to the well-known generalized Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation.