A new method of approximation scheme with potential application to a general interacting quantum system is presented. The method is non-perturbative, self- consistent, systematically improvable and uniformly applicable for arbitrary strength of interaction. It thus overcomes the various limitations of the exsting methods such as the perturbation theory, the variational method, the WKBJ method and other approximation schemes. The current method has been successfully applied to a variety of interacting systems including the anharmonic/ double-well oscillators (with quartic-, sextic- and octic couplings) and the scalar field theory with quartic-coupling in the symmetric phase. The method yields important insight in to the structure and stability of the interacting-vacuum of the theory. The results are in good agreement with the exact predictions of supersymmetry where ever applicable. Possible further applications in the areas of quantum statistics, finite temperature field theory, condensed matter physics etc are also discussed.
The Hamiltonian describing a single ion placed in a potential trap in interaction with a laser beam is studied by means of a suitable perturbative approach. It is shown, in particular, that the rotating wave approximation does not provide the correct expression, at the first perturbative order, of the evolution operator of the system.
A new and intuitive perturbative approach to time-dependent quantum mechanics problems is presented, which is useful in situations where the evolution of the Hamiltonian is slow. The state of a system which starts in an instantaneous eigenstate of the initial Hamiltonian is written as a power series which has a straightforward diagrammatic representation. Each term of the series corresponds to a sequence of "adiabatic" evolutions, during which the system remains in an instantaneous eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, punctuated by transitions from one state to another. The first term of this series…
Recently, Marzlin and Sanders (2004) demonstrated an inconsistency when the adiabatic approximation was applied to specific, "inverse" time-evolving systems. Following that, Tong et al. (2005) showed that the widely used traditional adiabatic conditions are insufficient to guarantee the validity of the adiabatic approximation for this class of systems. In this article we explore the origin of these observations by a perturbative approach and find that in first order approximation certain nonzero terms appear in the solution which gives rise to the breakdown of the adiabatic approximation (desp…
We introduce a perturbative approach to solving the time dependent Schroedinger equation, named adiabatic perturbation theory (APT), whose zeroth order term is the quantum adiabatic approximation. The small parameter in the power series expansion of the time-dependent wave function is the inverse of the time it takes to drive the system's Hamiltonian from the initial to its final form. We review other standard perturbative and non-perturbative ways of going beyond the adiabatic approximation, extending and finding exact relations among them, and also compare the efficiency of those methods aga…
An alternative approximation scheme has been used in solving the Schroedinger equation for the exponential-cosine-screened Coulomb potential. The bound state energies for various eigenstates and the corresponding wave functions are obtained analytically up to the second perturbation term.
The asymmetric quantum Rabi model (AQRM), which describes the interaction between a quantum harmonic oscillator and a biased qubit, arises naturally in circuit quantum electrodynamic circuits and devices. The existence of hidden symmetry in the AQRM leads to a rich energy landscape of conical intersections (CIs) and thus to interesting topological properties. However, current approximations to the AQRM fail to reproduce these CIs correctly. To overcome these limitations we propose a generalized adiabatic approximation (GAA) to describe the energy spectrum of the AQRM. This is achieved by combi…
We develop a hierarchical functional derivative method to investigate the reduced dynamics of a quantum dissipative system within the framework of a stochastic decoupling description. Keeping only the lowest order truncation of the hierarchical functional derivatives, one can recover the second order Nakajima-Zwanzig quantum master equation. Taking into account the higher-order corrections, our method can be implemented as a highly efficient numerical scheme for a general quantum dissipative system beyond the usual Markovian, rotating-wave, and weak-coupling approximations.
We analyze interference processes in atomic ionization induced by a two-color laser with fundamental frequency $ω$ and its second harmonic $2ω$. The interplay between inter- and intracycle interference processes give rise to multiphoton peaks which can be named as main or ATI peaks and sidebands, in analogy to the well-known RABBIT (reconstruction of attosecond harmonic beating by interference of two-photon transitions). We use the saddle point approximation (SPA) to extract the complex ionization times of the interfering electron trajectories. Changing the relative phase between the two color…
The Bloch vector's path of a two-level system exposed to a monochromatic field exhibits, in the regime of strong coupling, complex corkscrew trajectories. By considering the infinitesimal evolution of the two-level system when the field is treated as a classical object, we show that the Bloch vector's rotation speed oscillates between zero and twice the rotation speed predicted by the rotating wave approximation. Cusps appear when the rotation speed vanishes. We prove analytically that in correspondence to cusps the curvature of the Bloch vector's path diverges. On the other hand, numerical da…
Some open questions exist with fluctuation-induced forces between extended dipoles. Conventional intuition derives from large-separation perturbative approximations to dispersion force theory. Here we present a full non-perturbative theory. In addition we discuss how one can take into account finite dipole size corrections. It is of fundamental value to investigate the limits of validity of the perturbative dispersion force theory.
Using a perturbative approach, we investigate the parametric down-conversion process without the semi-classical approximation. A Wigner functional formalism, which incorporates both the spatiotemproal degrees of freedom and the particle-number degrees of freedom is used to perform the analysis. First, we derive an evolution equation for the down-conversion process in the nonlinear medium. Then we use the perturbative approach to solve the equation. The leading order contribution is equivalent to the semi-classical solution. The next-to-leading order contribution provides a solution that includ…
A perturbative study of the Schrödinger equation in a strong electromagnetic field with dipole approximation is accomplished in the Kramers-Henneberger frame. A prove that just odd harmonics appear in the spectrum for a linear polarized laser field is given, assuming that the atomic radius is much lesser than the free-electron quiver motion amplitude. Within this approximation a perturbation series is obtained in the Keldysh parameter giving a description of multiphoton processes in the tunneling regime. The theory is applied to the case of hydrogen-like atoms: The spectrum of higher order har…
We define a perturbative approximation for the solution of Lindblad master equations with time-dependent generators that satisfies the fundamental property of complete positivity, as essential for quantum simulations and optimal control. With explicit examples we show that ensuring this property substantially improves the accuracy of the perturbative approximation.
We present a perturbative treatment of the subohmic spin-boson model which remedies a crucial flaw in previous treatments. The problem is traced back to the incorrect application of a Markov type approximation to specific terms in the temporal evolution of the reduced density matrix. The modified solution is consistent both with numerical simulations and the exact solution obtained when the bath-coupling spin-space direction is parallel to the qubit energy-basis spin. We therefore demonstrate that %in distinction to previous findings the subohmic spin-boson model is capable of %consistently de…
Due to their collective nature Casimir forces can strongly depend on the geometrical shape of the interacting objects. We study the effect of strong periodic shape deformations of two ideal metal plates on their quantum interaction. A non-perturbative approach which is based on a path integral quantization of the electromagnetic field is presented in detail. Using this approach, we compute the force for the specific case of a flat plate and a plate with a rectangular corrugation. We obtain complementary analytical and numerical results which allow us to identify two different scaling regimes f…
Interacting matter-radiation models close to physical systems are proposed, which without rotating wave approximation and with matter-matter interactions are Bethe ansatz solvable. This integrable system is constructed from the elliptic Gaudin model at high spin limit, where radiative excitation can be included perturbatively.
