Divergence-free WKB theory

We present a divergence-free WKB theory, which is a new semiclassical theory modified by nonperturbative quantum corrections. Conventionally, the WKB theory is constructed upon a trajectory that obeys the bare classical dynamics expressed by a quadratic equation in momentum space. Contrary to this, the divergence-free WKB theory is based on a higher-order algebraic equation in momentum space, which represents a dressed classical dynamics. More precisely, this higher-order algebraic equation is obtained by including quantum corrections to the quadratic equation, which is the bare classical limit. An additional solution of the higher-order algebraic equation enables us to construct a uniformly converging perturbative expansion of the wavefunction. Namely, our theory removes the notorious divergence of wavefunction at a turning point from the WKB theory. Moreover, our theory is able to produce wavefunctions and eigenenergies more accurate than those given by the traditional WKB method. In addition, the divergence-free WKB theory that is based on the cubic equation allows us to construct a uniformly valid wavefunction for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE). A recent short letter [T. Hyouguchi, S. Adachi, M. Ueda, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2002) 170404] is the opening of the divergence-free WKB theory. This paper presents full formalism of this theory and its several applications concerning wavefunction and eigenenergy to show that our theory is a natural extension of the traditional WKB theory that incorporates nonperturbative quantum corrections.     

A Hamilton-Jacobi formalism for thermodynamics

We show that classical thermodynamics has a formulation in terms of Hamilton-Jacobi theory, analogous to mechanics. Even though the thermodynamic variables come in conjugate pairs such as pressure/volume or temperature/entropy, the phase space is odd-dimensional. For a system with n thermodynamic degrees of freedom it is 2n+1-dimensional. The equations of state of a substance pick out an n-dimensional submanifold. A family of substances whose equations of state depend on n parameters define a hypersurface of co-dimension one. This can be described by the vanishing of a function which plays the role of a Hamiltonian. The ordinary differential equations (characteristic equations) defined by this function describe a dynamical system on the hypersurface. Its orbits can be used to reconstruct the equations of state. The ‘time’ variable associated to this dynamics is related to, but is not identical to, entropy. After developing this formalism on well-grounded systems such as the van der Waals gases and the Curie-Weiss magnets, we derive a Hamilton-Jacobi equation for black hole thermodynamics in General Relativity. The cosmological constant appears as a constant of integration in this picture.     

Spin gauge fields: From Berry phase to topological spin transport and Hall effects

The paper examines the emergence of gauge fields during the evolution of a particle with a spin that is described by a matrix Hamiltonian with n different eigenvalues. It is shown that by introducing a spin gauge field a particle with a spin can be described as a spin multiplet of scalar particles situated in a non-Abelian pure gauge (forceless) field U (n). As the result, one can create a theory of particle evolution that is gauge-invariant with regards to the group Uⁿ (1). Due to this, in the adiabatic (Abelian) approximation the spin gauge field is an analogue of n electromagnetic fields U (1) on the extended phase space of the particle. These fields are force ones, and the forces of their action enter the particle motion equations that are derived in the paper in the general form. The motion equations describe the topological spin transport, pumping, and splitting. The Berry phase is represented in this theory analogously to the Dirac phase of a particle in an electromagnetic field. Due to the analogy with the electromagnetic field, the theory becomes natural in the four-dimensional form. Besides the general theory, the article considers a number of important particular examples, both known and new.     

Ab initio theory of complex electronic ground state of superconductors: I. Nonadiabatic modification of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation

The ARPES of high-T_c cuprates and theoretical results of low-Fermi energy band structure fluctuation for different groups of superconductors indicate that electron coupling to pertinent phonon modes drive system from adiabatic into anti-adiabatic state (ω>E_F). At these circumstances, not only Migdal-Eliashberg approximation is not valid, but basic adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer approximation (BOA) does not hold. At these circumstances, electronic structure has to be studied as explicitly dependent on instantaneous nuclear coordinates Q as well as on instantaneous nuclear momenta P.In the present paper—part I, it has been shown that Q, P-dependent modification of the BOA for ground electronic state can be derived by sequence of canonical transformations of the basis functions. The effect of nuclear coordinates and momenta on electronic structure is presented in the form of corrections to zero-, one- and two-particle terms of clamped nuclear Hamiltonian. In the anti-adiabatic state, correction to electronic ground state energy (zero-particle term correction) is negative and system can be stabilized in the anti-adiabatic state at distorted geometry with respect to adiabatic equilibrium structure and gap in one-particle spectrum of quasi-continuum states at Fermi level can be opened. Stabilization effect is solely the consequence of nuclear dynamics (P) that is crucial in anti-adiabatic state. It has been shown that nuclear dynamics also increases electron correlation until system at nuclear motion remains in a bound state. Corresponding corrections to electronic wave function are also specified.On the other hand, when system remains at vibration motion of nuclei in adiabatic state, the influence of nuclear dynamics (P-dependence) is negligible. In this case, all basic effects are covered through nuclear coordinates (Q-dependence) within the adiabatic BOA and standard results of solid-state (or molecular) physics are recovered.     

Quantum phase-space description of light polarization

We present a method to characterize the polarization state of a light field in the continuous-variable regime. Instead of using the abstract formalism of SU(2) quasidistributions, we model polarization as the superposition of two harmonic oscillators of the same angular frequency along two orthogonal axes, much in the classical way of dealing with this variable. By describing each oscillator by an s-parametrized quasidistribution, we derive in a consistent way the final function for the polarization. We compare with previous approaches and show how this formalism works in some relevant examples.     

Wave-function transformations by general SU(1, 1) single-mode squeezing and analogy to Fresnel transformations in wave optics

Following Dirac’s assertion: “… for a quantum dynamic system that has a classical analogue, unitary transformation in the quantum theory is the analogue of contact transformation in the classical theory”, we find that the general SU(1, 1) single-mode squeezing operator F just corresponds to the generalized Fresnel transform (GFT) in wave optics. We derive the normal product form and canonical coherent state representation of F, whose matrix element in the coordinate representation is just the GFT. It is shown that F is a faithful representation of symplectic group which indicates that two successive GFTs is still a GFT. Applications of F in some other optical transforms, such as the Fresnel-wavelet transform, are presented.     

Coherent states of the inverted Caldirola-Kanai oscillator with time-dependent singularities

The coherent states for a system of time-dependent singular potentials coupled to inverted CK (Caldirola-Kanai) oscillator are investigated by employing invariant operator method and Lie algebraic approach. We considered Coulomb potential and inverse quadratic potential as singularities of the system. The spectrum of quantum states is discrete for λ < 0 while continuous for λ ? 0. The probability densities for both Fock state and coherent state are converged to the center as time goes by according to the dissipation of energy. We confirmed that the probability density in the coherent state oscillates back and forth like a classical wave packet.     

ABCD rule for Gaussian beam propagation in the context of quantum optics derived by the IWOP technique

The development of technique of integration within an ordered product (IWOP) of operators extends the Newton-Leibniz integration rule, originally applying to permutable functions, to the non-commutative quantum mechanical operators composed of Dirac’s ket-bra, which enables us to obtain the images of directly mapping symplectic transformation in classical phase space parameterized by [A, B; C, D] into quantum mechanical operator through the coherent state representation, we call them the generalized Fresnel operators (GFO) since they correspond to Fresnel transforms in Fourier optics. Based on GFO we find the ABCD rule for Gaussian beam propagation in the context of quantum optics (both in one-mode and two-mode cases) whose classical correspondence is just the ABCD rule in matrix optics. The entangled state representation is used in discussing the two-mode case.     

Exact decoherence dynamics of a single-mode optical field

We apply the influence-functional method of Feynman and Vernon to the study of a single-mode optical field that interacts with an environment at zero temperature. Using the coherent-state formalism of the path integral, we derive a generalized master equation for the single-mode optical field. Our analysis explicitly shows how non-Markovian effects manifest in the exact decoherence dynamics for different environmental correlation time scales. Remarkably, when these are equal to or greater than the time scale for significant change in the system, the interplay between the backaction-induced coherent oscillation and the dissipative effect of the environment causes the non-Markovian effect to have a significant impact not only on the short-time behavior but also on the long-time steady-state behavior of the system.     

Ab initio theory of complex electronic ground state of superconductors: II.: Antiadiabatic state—Ground state of superconductors

Based on Q, P-dependent modification of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation (BOA), the ab initio theory of complex electronic ground state of superconductors is presented. As an illustrative example, application of the theory to superconductors of a different character and to the corresponding nonsuperconducting analogues is presented. It is shown that due to electron-phonon (EP) interactions, which drive system from adiabatic into antiadiabatic state, adiabatic translation symmetry is broken and system is stabilized in antiadiabatic state at distorted geometry with respect to adiabatic equilibrium high-symmetry structure. Stabilization effect in the antiadiabatic state is due to strong dependence of the electronic motion on the instantaneous nuclear kinetic energy, i.e. on the effect that is neglected on the adiabatic level within the BOA. At distorted geometry, antiadiabatic ground state is geometrically degenerated with fluxional nuclear configurations in the phonon modes that drive system into this state. It has been shown that until the system remains in antiadiabatic state, nonadiabatic polaron-renormalized phonon interactions are zero in the well-defined k-region of reciprocal lattice. This, along with geometric degeneracy of the antiadiabatic state, enables formation of mobile bipolarons that can move over lattice as supercarriers without dissipation. Moreover, it has been shown that due to EP interactions at transition into antiadiabatic state, k-dependent gap in one-electron spectrum has been opened. Gap opening is associated with shift of the original adiabatic Hartree-Fock orbital energies and with the k-dependent change in density of states of particular band(s) at Fermi level. Corrected one-particle spectrum enables to derive thermodynamic properties in full agreement with corresponding thermodynamic properties of superconductors.Based on the complex ab initio theory, it has been shown that Fröhlich's effective attractive electron-electron interaction term represents correction to electron correlation energy at transition from adiabatic into antiadiabatic state due to EP interactions. It has been shown that increased electron correlation is a consequence of stabilization of the system in superconducting electronic ground state, but not the reason for its formation.     

Newton-Leibniz integration for ket-bra operators in quantum mechanics (IV)—Integrations within Weyl ordered product of operators and their applications

We show that the technique of integration within normal ordering of operators [Hong-yi Fan, Hai-liang Lu, Yue Fan, Ann. Phys. 321 (2006) 480-494] applied to tackling Newton-Leibniz integration over ket-bra projection operators, can be generalized to the technique of integration within Weyl ordered product (IWWOP) of operators. The Weyl ordering symbol is introduced to find the Wigner operator’s Weyl ordering form Δ(p,q) =  δ(p − P)δ(q − Q) , and to find operators’ Weyl ordered expansion formula. A remarkable property is that Weyl ordering of operators is covariant under similarity transformation, so it has many applications in quantum statistics and signal analysis. Thus the invention of the IWWOP technique promotes the progress of Dirac’s symbolic method.     

On Wigner functions and a damped star product in dissipative phase-space quantum mechanics

Dito and Turrubiates recently introduced an interesting model of the dissipative quantum mechanics of a damped harmonic oscillator in phase space. Its key ingredient is a non-Hermitian deformation of the Moyal star product with the damping constant as deformation parameter. We compare the Dito-Turrubiates scheme with phase-space quantum mechanics (or deformation quantization) based on other star products, and extend it to incorporate Wigner functions. The deformed (or damped) star product is related to a complex Hamiltonian, and so necessitates a modified equation of motion involving complex conjugation. We find that with this change the Wigner function satisfies the classical equation of motion. This seems appropriate since non-dissipative systems with quadratic Hamiltonians share this property.     

A canonical formulation of dissipative mechanics using complex-valued hamiltonians

We show that a large class of dissipative systems can be brought to a canonical form by introducing complex co-ordinates in phase space and a complex-valued hamiltonian. A naive canonical quantization of these systems lead to non-hermitean hamiltonian operators. The excited states are unstable and decay to the ground state. We also compute the tunneling amplitude across a potential barrier by solving the dissipative version of the Schrödinger equation. We then generalize the formalism to cases where the configuration space is a curved Riemannian manifold.     

Intertwined Hamiltonians in two-dimensional curved spaces

The problem of intertwined Hamiltonians in two-dimensional curved spaces is investigated. Explicit results are obtained for Euclidean plane, Minkowski plane, Poincaré half plane (AdS₂), de Sitter plane (dS₂), sphere, and torus. It is shown that the intertwining operator is related to the Killing vector fields and the isometry group of corresponding space. It is shown that the intertwined potentials are closely connected to the integral curves of the Killing vector fields. Two problems are considered as applications of the formalism presented in the paper. The first one is the problem of Hamiltonians with equispaced energy levels and the second one is the problem of Hamiltonians whose spectrum is like the spectrum of a free particle.     

Hamiltonian quantum dynamics with separability constraints

Schroedinger equation on a Hilbert space H, represents a linear Hamiltonian dynamical system on the space of quantum pure states, the projective Hilbert space PH. Separable states of a bipartite quantum system form a special submanifold of PH. We analyze the Hamiltonian dynamics that corresponds to the quantum system constrained on the manifold of separable states, using as an important example the system of two interacting qubits. The constraints introduce nonlinearities which render the dynamics nontrivial. We show that the qualitative properties of the constrained dynamics clearly manifest the symmetry of the qubits system. In particular, if the quantum Hamilton’s operator has not enough symmetry, the constrained dynamics is nonintegrable, and displays the typical features of a Hamiltonian dynamical system with mixed phase space. Possible physical realizations of the separability constraints are discussed.     

Low-temperature thermal conductivity in a d-wave superconductor with coexisting charge order: Effect of self-consistent disorder and vertex corrections

Given the experimental evidence of charge order in the underdoped cuprate superconductors, we consider the effect of coexisting charge order on low-temperature thermal transport in a d  -wave superconductor. Using a phenomenological Hamiltonian that describes a two-dimensional system in the presence of a Q=(π,0)$\mathbf{Q}=(\pi \text{,}0)$ charge density wave and d-wave superconducting order, and including the effects of weak impurity scattering, we compute the self-energy of the quasiparticles within the self-consistent Born approximation, and calculate the zero-temperature thermal conductivity using linear response formalism. We find that vertex corrections within the ladder approximation do not significantly modify the bare-bubble result that was previously calculated. However, self-consistent treatment of the disorder does modify the charge-order-dependence of the thermal conductivity tensor, in that the magnitude of charge order required for the system to become effectively gapped is renormalized, generally to a smaller value.     

Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism for Fermi classical systems

The Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism of fermionic classical systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom is considered. The Weyl correspondence is studied by computing the relevant Stratonovich-Weyl quantizer. The Moyal -product, Wigner functions and normal ordering are obtained for generic fermionic systems. Finally, this formalism is used to perform the deformation quantization of the Fermi oscillator and the supersymmetric quantum mechanics.     

New approach for analyzing time evolution of density operator in a dissipative channel by the entangled state representation

We analyze the time evolution of mixed state ρ₀ in a dissipative channel, characteristic of a decay constant κ, by virtue of the elegant properties of entangled state representation 〈η|. We find that the matrix element of the mixed state ρ(t) at time t in 〈η| representation is proportional to that of the initial ρ₀ in the decayed entangled state 〈ηe^-κt| representation, accompanying with a Gaussian damping factor . Thus we have a new insight about the nature of the dissipative process.