In this work the evolution of a wavefunction in an infinite potential well with time dependent boundaries is investigated. Previous methods for wells with walls moving at a constant velocity are summarised. These methods are extended to wells with slowly accelerating walls. The location and time of the revivals in the well of the initial wavefunction are derived using Jacobi's elliptic theta function.
Reflection of a normal incident matter wave by a perfectly reflecting wall moving with a constant velocity is investigated. A surprising phenomenon is found-that if the the wall moves faster than the phase velocity of the incident wave, both the reflected and incident waves propagate in the same direction. This counter-intuitive result is an example which shows that common sense is not always credible when one deals with quantum problems.
Geometric phase in the wave function is important with regard to quantum non-locality and adiabatic evolution. We study the confinement of a particle by three-dimensional isotropically moving walls, of relevance to experimental trapping techniques, via a proposed approach that explains the physical origin of the geometric Dirac phase induced in the wave function. This phase depends only on the relative rate of change of the spatial scale factor. The approach also yields the class of external potentials that replicate adiabatic evolution in finite time. As illustrative examples, we consider uni…
We give a modified Hamiltonian for a particle in a box with infinite potential walls that takes into account wall effects. The Hamiltonian is expressed in both the position and momentum representation. In the momentum representation the eigenvalue problem for energy is an integral equation.
The Casimir-Polder force is an attractive force between a polarizable atom and a conducting or dielectric boundary. Its original computation was in terms of the Lamb shift of the atomic ground state in an electromagnetic field (EMF) modified by boundary conditions along the wall and assuming a stationary atom. We calculate the corrections to this force due to a moving atom, demanding maximal preservation of entanglement generated by the moving atom-conducting wall system. We do this by using non-perturbative path integral techniques which allow for coherent back-action and thus can treat non-M…
We use the Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation theory to calculate the corrections to the adiabatic geometric phase due to a perturbation of the Hamiltonian. We show that these corrections are at least of second order in the perturbation parameter. As an application of our general results we address the problem of the adiabatic geometric phase for a one-dimensional particle which is confined to an infinite square well with moving walls.
We analyze the non-relativistic problem of a quantum particle that bounces back and forth between two moving walls. We recast this problem into the equivalent one of a quantum particle in a fixed box whose dynamics is governed by an appropriate time-dependent Schroedinger operator.
We discuss a recent method proposed by Kryukov and Walton to address boundary-value problems in the context of deformation quantization. We compare their method with our own approach and establish a connection between the two formalisms.
Employing a transformation to hyperbolic space, we derive in a simple way exact solutions for the Klein-Gordon equation in an infinite square-well potential with one boundary moving at constant velocity, for the massless as well as for the massive case.
We unveil the existence of a non-trivial Berry phase associated to the dynamics of a quantum particle in a one dimensional box with moving walls. It is shown that a suitable choice of boundary conditions has to be made in order to preserve unitarity. For these boundary conditions we compute explicitly the geometric phase two-form on the parameter space. The unboundedness of the Hamiltonian describing the system leads to a natural prescription of renormalization for divergent contributions arising from the boundary.
In deformation quantization (a.k.a. the Wigner-Weyl-Moyal formulation of quantum mechanics), we consider a single quantum particle moving freely in one dimension, except for the presence of one infinite potential wall. Dias and Prata pointed out that, surprisingly, its stationary-state Wigner function does not obey the naive equation of motion, i.e. the naive stargenvalue (*-genvalue) equation. We review our recent work on this problem, that treats the infinite wall as the limit of a Liouville potential. Also included are some new results: (i) we show explicitly that the Wigner-Weyl transform …
We examine the deformation quantization of a single particle moving in one dimension (i) in the presence of an infinite potential wall, (ii) confined by an infinite square well, and (iii) bound by a delta function potential energy. In deformation quantization, considered as an autonomous formulation of quantum mechanics, the Wigner function of stationary states must be found by solving the so-called $\*$-genvalue (``stargenvalue'') equation for the Hamiltonian. For the cases considered here, this pseudo-differential equation is difficult to solve directly, without an ad hoc modification of the…
The Schrödinger equation is solved for the case of a particle confined to a small region of a box with infinite walls. If walls of the well are moved, then, due to an effective quantum nonlocal interaction with the boundary, even though the particle is nowhere near the walls, it will be affected. It is shown that this force apart from a minus sign is equal to the expectation value of the gradient of the quantum potential for vanishing at the walls boundary condition. Variation of this force with time is studied. A selection of Bohmian trajectories of the confined particle is also computed.
A Gedanken experiment is described to explore a counter-intuitive property of quantum mechanics. A particle is placed in a one-dimensional infinite well. The barrier on one side of the well is suddenly removed and the chamber dramatically enlarged. At specific, periodically recurring, times the particle can be found with probability one at the opposite end of the enlarged chamber in an interval of the same size as the initial well. With the help of symmetry considerations these times are calculated and shown to be dependent on the mass of the particle and the size of the enlarged chamber. Para…
We investigate the issue of single particle nonlocality in a quantum system subjected to time-dependent boundary conditions. We discuss earlier claims according to which the quantum state of a particle remaining localized at the center of an infinite well with moving walls would be specifically modified by the change in boundary conditions due to the wall's motion. We first prove that the evolution of an initially localized Gaussian state is not affected nonlocally by a linearly moving wall: as long as the quantum state has negligible amplitude near the wall, the boundary motion has no effect.…
We explore the energy dynamics of a two dimensional (2D) trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) excited by a moving red-detuned laser potential (RDLP). The trap is a combination of a power-law (PL) potential cutoff by a hard-wall box potential (HWBP). It is found that by a restricted measurment of the energy within the boundaries of the HWBP, the energy demonstrates oscillations indicative of solitons. It is then demonstrated, that the geometry of the PL potential influences the lifetime of these oscillations, i.e., the lifetime of the ensuing solitons inside the HWBP. We argue that the energy…
Some recent results concerning a particle confined in a one-dimensional box with moving walls are briefly reviewed. By exploiting the same techniques used for the 1D problem, we investigate the behavior of a quantum particle confined in a two-dimensional box (a 2D billiard) whose walls are moving, by recasting the relevant mathematical problem with moving boundaries in the form of a problem with fixed boundaries and time-dependent Hamiltonian. Changes of the shape of the box are shown to be important, as it clearly emerges from the comparison between the "pantographic", case (same shape of the…
We investigate the dynamics of a particle in a confined periodic system---a time-dependent oscillator confined by infinitely high and moving walls---and focus on the evolution of the phase of the wavefunction. It is shown that, for some specific initial states in this potential, the phase of the wavefunction throughout the cavity depends on the walls motion. We further elaborate a thought experiment based on interferences devised to detect this form of single-particle nonlocality from a relative phase. We point out that, within the non-relativistic formalism based on the Schrödinger equation (…
We investigate the system of a particle moving on a half line x >= 0 under the general walls at x = 0 that are permitted quantum mechanically. These quantum walls, characterized by a parameter L, are shown to be realized as a limit of regularized potentials. We then study the classical aspects of the quantum walls, by seeking a classical counterpart which admits the same time delay in scattering with the quantum wall, and also by examining the WKB-exactness of the transition kernel based on the regularized potentials. It is shown that no classical counterpart exists for walls with L < 0, and t…
Using mainly two techniques, a point transformation and a time dependent supersymmetry, we construct in sequence several quantum infinite potential wells with a moving barrier. We depart from the well known system of a one-dimensional particle in a box. With a point transformation, an infinite square-well potential with a moving barrier is generated. Using time dependent supersymmetry, the latter leads to a trigonometric Pöschl-Teller potential with a moving barrier. Finally, a confluent time dependent supersymmetry transformation is implemented to generate new infinite potential wells, all of…
Exact solution of the Schrödinger equation is given for a particle inside a hard sphere whose wall is moving with a constant velocity. Numerical computations are presented for both contracting and expanding spheres. The propagator is constructed and compared with the propagator of a particle in an infinite square well with one wall in uniform motion.
The one-dimensional scattering of a two body interacting system by an infinite wall is studied in a quantum-mechanical framework. This problem contains some of the dynamical features present in the collision of atomic, molecular and nuclear systems. The scattering problem is solved exactly, for the case of a harmonic interaction between the fragments. The exact result is used to assess the validity of two different approximations to the scattering process. The adiabatic approximation, which considers that the relative co-ordinate is frozen during the scattering process, is found to be inadequa…