We extend our previous work on symplectic semiclassical Gaussian wave packet dynamics to incorporate electromagnetic interactions by including a vector potential. The main advantage of our formulation is that the equations of motion derived are naturally Hamiltonian. We obtain an asymptotic expansion of our equations in terms of $\hbar$ and show that our equations have $\mathcal{O}(\hbar)$ corrections to those presented by Zhou, whereas ours also recover the equations of Zhou in the case of a linear vector potential and quadratic scalar potential. One and two dimensional examples of a particle in a magnetic field are given and numerical solutions are presented and compared with the classical solutions and the expectation values of the corresponding observables as calculated by the Egorov or Initial Value Representation (IVR) method. We numerically demonstrate that the $\mathcal{O}(\hbar)$ correction terms improve the accuracy of the classical or Zhou's equations for short times in the sense that our solutions converge to the expectation values calculated using the Egorov/IVR method faster than the classical solutions or those of Zhou as $\hbar \to 0$.
We present a simple formula for the generating function for the polynomials in the $d$--dimensional semiclassical wave packets. We then use this formula to prove the associated Rodrigues formula.
We generalize our earlier work on the symplectic/Hamiltonian formulation of the dynamics of the Gaussian wave packet to non-Gaussian semiclassical wave packets. We find the symplectic forms and asymptotic expansions of the Hamiltonians associated with these semiclassical wave packets, and obtain Hamiltonian systems governing their dynamics. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the dynamics give a very good approximation to the short-time dynamics of the expectation values computed by a method based on Egorov's Theorem or the Initial Value Representation.
The paper gives a symplectic-geometric account of semiclassical Gaussian wave packet dynamics. We employ geometric techniques to "strip away" the symplectic structure behind the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and incorporate it into semiclassical wave packet dynamics. We show that the Gaussian wave packet dynamics is a Hamiltonian system with respect to the symplectic structure, apply the theory of symplectic reduction and reconstruction to the dynamics, and discuss dynamic and geometric phases in semiclassical mechanics. A simple harmonic oscillator example is worked out to illustrate th…
Although real, normalized Gaussian wave packets minimize the product of position and momentum uncertainties, generic complex normalized Gaussian wave packets do not. We prove they minimize an alternative product of uncertainties that correspond to variables that are phase space rotations of position and momentum.
The semiclassical long-time limit of free evolution of quantum wave packets on the torus is under consideration. Despite of simplicity of this system, there are still open questions concerning the detailed description of the evolution on time scales beyond the Ehrenfest time. One of the approaches is based on the limiting Wigner or Husimi distributions of time-evolved wave packets as the Planck constant tends to zero and time tends to infinity. We derive explicit expressions for semiclassical measures corresponding to all time scales and the corresponding stages of evolution: classical-like mo…
This paper concerns an approximation of the expectation values of the position and momentum of the solution to the semiclassical Schrödinger equation with a Gaussian as the initial condition. Of particular interest is the approximation obtained by our symplectic/Hamiltonian formulation of the Gaussian wave packet dynamics that introduces a correction term to the conventional formulation using the classical Hamiltonian system by Hagedorn and others. The main result is a proof that our formulation gives a higher-order approximation than the classical formulation does to the expectation value dyn…
We formulate symmetries in semiclassical Gaussian wave packet dynamics and find the corresponding conserved quantities, particularly the semiclassical angular momentum, via Noether's theorem. We consider two slightly different formulations of Gaussian wave packet dynamics; one is based on earlier works of Heller and Hagedorn, and the other based on the symplectic-geometric approach by Lubich and others. In either case, we reveal the symplectic and Hamiltonian nature of the dynamics and formulate natural symmetry group actions in the setting to derive the corresponding conserved quantities (mom…
We study a special kind of semiclassical limit of quantum dynamics on a circle and in a box (infinite potential well with hard walls) as the Planck constant tends to zero and time tends to infinity. The results give detailed information about all stages of evolution of quantum wave packets: semiclassical motion, collapses, revivals, as well as intermediate stages. In particular, we rigorously justify the fact that the spatial distribution of a wave packet is most of the time close to uniform. This fact was previously known only from numerical calculations. We apply the obtained results to a pr…
We study the quantum evolution in dimension three of a system composed by a test particle interacting with an environment made of $N$ harmonic oscillators. At time zero the test particle is described by a spherical wave, i.e. a highly correlated continuous superposition of states with well localized position and momentum, and the oscillators are in the ground state. Under suitable assumptions on the physical parameters characterizing the model, we give an asymptotic expression of the solution of the Schrödinger equation of the system with an explicit control of the error. The result shows that…
We consider semiclassically scaled Schrodinger equations with an external potential and a highly oscillatory periodic potential. We construct asymptotic solutions in the form of semiclassical wave packets. These solutions are concentrated (both, in space and in frequency) around the effective semiclassical phase-space flow obtained by Peierl's substitution, and involve a slowly varying envelope whose dynamics is governed by a homogenized Schrodinger equation with time-dependent effective mass. The corresponding adiabatic decoupling of the slow and fast degrees of freedom is shown to be valid u…
We study the propagation of wave packets for nonlinear nonlocal Schrodinger equations in the semi-classical limit. When the kernel is smooth, we construct approximate solutions for the wave functions in subcritical, critical and supercritical cases (in terms of the size of the initial data). The validity of the approximation is proved up to Ehrenfest time. For homogeneous kernels, we establish similar results in subcritical and critical cases. Nonlinear superposition principle for two nonlinear wave packets is also considered.
We consider the singular semiclassical initial value problem for the phase space Schrodinger equation. We approximate semiclassical quantum evolution in phase space by analyzing initial states as superpositions of Gaussian wave packets and applying individually semiclassical anisotropic Gaussian wave packet dynamics, which is based on the the nearby orbit approximation; we accordingly construct a semiclassical approximation of the phase space propagator, the semiclassical wave packet propagator. By the semiclassical propagator we construct asymptotic solutions of the phase space Schrodinger …
Recently Ohsawa has studied the Marsden-Weinstein-Meyer quotient of the manifold $T^*\mathbb{R}^n\times T^*\mathbb{R}^{2n^2}$ under a $\operatorname{O}(2n)$-symmetry, and has used this quotient to describe the relationship between two different parametrisations of Gaussian wave packet dynamics commonly used in semiclassical mechanics. In this paper we suggest a new interpretation of (a subset of) the unreduced space as being the frame bundle $\mathcal{F}(T^*\mathbb{R}^n)$ of $T^*\mathbb{R}^n$. We outline some advantages of this interpretation, and explain how it can be extended to more general…
We prove six theorems concerning exponentially accurate semiclassical quantum mechanics. Two of these theorems are known results, but have new proofs. Under appropriate hypotheses, they conclude that the exact and approximate dynamics of an initially localized wave packet agree up to exponentially small errors in $\hbar$ for finite times and for Ehrenfest times. Two other theorems state that for such times the wave packets are localized near a classical orbit up to exponentially small errors. The fifth theorem deals with infinite times and states an exponentially accurate scattering result. Th…
The semiclassically scaled time-dependent multi-particle Schrödinger equation describes, inter alia, quantum dynamics of nuclei in a molecule. It poses the combined computational challenges of high oscillations and high dimensions. This paper reviews and studies numerical approaches that are robust to the small semiclassical parameter. We present and analyse variationally evolving Gaussian wave packets, Hagedorn's semiclassical wave packets, continuous superpositions of both thawed and frozen Gaussians, and Wigner function approaches to the direct computation of expectation values of observabl…
We successively apply the generalized Case-Foldy-Feshbach-Villars (CFFV) and the Foldy-Wouthuysen (FW) transformation to derive the Hamiltonian for relativistic scalar particles in an electromagnetic field. In contrast to the original transformation, the generalized CFFV transformation contains an arbitrary parameter and can be performed for massless particles, which allows solving the problem of massless particles in an electromagnetic field. We show that the form of the Hamiltonian in the FW representation is independent of the arbitrarily chosen parameter. Compared with the classical Hamilt…
We study the dynamics of a quantum particle in R^(n+m) constrained by a strong potential force to stay within a distance of order hbar (in suitable units) from a smooth n-dimensional submanifold M. We prove that in the semiclassical limit the evolution of the wave function is approximated in norm, up to terms of order hbar^(1/2), by the evolution of a semiclassical wave packet centred on the trajectory of the corresponding classical constrained system.
The three-wave resonant interaction equations are a non-dispersive system of partial differential equations with quadratic coupling describing the time evolution of the complex amplitudes of three resonant wave modes. Collisions of wave packets induce energy transfer between different modes via pumping and decay. We analyze the collision of two or three packets in the semiclassical limit by applying the inverse-scattering transform. Using WKB analysis, we construct an associated semiclassical soliton ensemble, a family of reflectionless solutions defined through their scattering data, intended…
The quantum evolution of the Wigner function for Gaussian wave packets generated by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is investigated. In the semiclassical limit $\hbar\to 0$ this yields the non-Hermitian analog of the Ehrenfest theorem for the dynamics of observable expectation values. The lack of Hermiticity reveals the importance of the complex structure on the classical phase space: The resulting equations of motion are coupled to an equation of motion for the phase space metric---a phenomenon having no analog in Hermitian theories.
We introduce an analog of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map for the Maxwell equation in a bounded domain. We show that it can be approximated by a pseudodifferential operator on the boundary with a matrix-valued symbol and we compute the principal symbol. As a consequence, we obtain a parabolic region free of the transmission eigenvalues associated to the Maxwell equation.
We construct quasimodes for some non-selfadjoint semiclassical operators at the boundary of the pseudo-spectrum using propagation of Hagedorn wave-packets. Assuming that the imaginary part of the principal symbol of the operator is non-negative and vanishes on certain points of the phase-space satisfying a subelliptic finite-type condition, we construct quasimodes that concentrate on these non-damped points. More generally, we apply this technique to construct quasimodes for non-selfadjoint semiclassical perturbations of the harmonic oscillator that concentrate on non-damped periodic orbits or…
We present a semiclassical analysis for Dirac fields on an arbitrary spacetime background and in the presence of a fixed electromagnetic field. Our approach is based on a Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, and the results are analyzed at leading and next-to-leading order in the small expansion parameter $\hbar$. Taking into account the spin-orbit coupling between the internal and external degrees of freedom of wave packets, we derive effective ray equations with spin-dependent terms. These equations describe the gravitational spin Hall effect of localized Dirac wave packets. We treat bot…
We study the time behavior of wave functions involved in tunneling through a smooth potential barrier in one dimension in the semiclassical limit. We determine the leading order component of the wave function that tunnels. It is exponentially small in $1/\hbar$. For a wide variety of incoming wave packets, the leading order tunneling component is Gaussian for sufficiently small $\hbar$. We prove this for both the large time asymptotics and for moderately large values of the time variable.
We study a topological space obtained from a graph via replacing vertices with smooth Riemannian manifolds, i.e. a decorated graph. We construct a semiclassical asymptotics of the solutions of Cauchy problem for a time-dependent Schrödinger equation on a decorated graph with a localized initial function. The main term of our asymptotic solution at an arbitrary finite time is the sum of Gaussian packets and generalized Gaussian packets. We study the number of such packets as time goes to infinity. We prove asymptotic estimations for this number for the following decorated graphs: cylinder with …
We show that the Siegel upper half space $Σ_{d}$ is identified with the Marsden-Weinstein quotient obtained by symplectic reduction of the cotangent bundle $T^{*}\mathbb{R}^{2d^{2}}$ with $\mathsf{O}(2d)$-symmetry. The reduced symplectic form on $Σ_{d}$ corresponding to the standard symplectic form on $T^{*}\mathbb{R}^{2d^{2}}$ turns out to be a constant multiple of the symplectic form on $Σ_{d}$ obtained by Siegel. Our motivation is to understand the geometry behind two different formulations of the Gaussian wave packet dynamics commonly used in semiclassical mechanics. Specifically, we show …
We study the semiclassical propagation of squeezed Gaußian states. We do so by considering the propagation theorem introduced by Combescure and Robert \cite{CR97} approximating the evolution generated by the Weyl-quantization of symbols $H$. We examine the particular case when the Hessian $H^{\prime\prime}(X_{t})$ evaluated at the corresponding solution $X_{t}$ of Hamilton's equations of motion is periodic in time. Under this assumption, we show that the width of the wave packet can remain small up to the Ehrenfest time. We also determine conditions for ``classical revivals'' in that case. Mor…
We consider the Hartree equation with a smooth kernel and an external potential, in the semiclassical regime. We analyze the propagation of two initial wave packets, and show different possible effects of the interaction, according to the size of the nonlinearity in terms of the semiclassical parameter. We show three different sorts of nonlinear phenomena. In each case, the structure of the wave as a sum of two coherent states is preserved. However, the envelope and the center (in phase space) of these two wave packets are affected by nonlinear interferences, which are described precisely.
A procedure based on the semiclassical approximation for high energy levels is developed to yield solutions to the classical equation of charge motion and to the Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi spin equation. To this end, exact solutions to the Klein-Gordon and the Dirac-Pauli equations are used. The essence of the procedure under review is that the quantum state of a charged particle in a homogeneous magnetic field is represented as a superposition of states corresponding to the neighboring energy levels. As a consequence, the behavior of the expectation values of the momentum and spin operators with…
The semiclassical kinetic theory of Dirac particles in the presence of external electromagnetic fields and global rotation is established. To provide the Hamiltonian formulation of Dirac particles a symplectic two-form which is a matrix in spin indices is proposed. The particle number and current densities for the Dirac particles are acquired in the helicity basis. Following a similar procedure, semiclassical kinetic theory of the Weyl particles is accomplished. It is shown that the phase-space dynamics of the Weyl and Dirac particles is directly linked. The anomalous chiral effects due to the…
Kinetic theory of Dirac fermions is studied within the matrix valued differential forms method. It is based on the symplectic form derived by employing the semiclassical wave packet build of the positive energy solutions of the Dirac equation. A satisfactory definition of the distribution matrix elements imposes to work in the basis where the helicity is diagonal which is also needed to attain the massless limit. We show that the kinematic Thomas precession correction can be studied straightforwardly within this approach. It contributes on an equal footing with the Berry gauge fields. In fact …
Weyl quantization and related semiclassical techniques can be used to study conduction properties of crystalline solids subjected to slowly-varying, external electromagnetic fields. The case where the external magnetic field is constant, is not covered by existing theory as proofs involving usual Weyl calculus break down. This is the regime of the so-called quantum Hall effect where quantization of transverse conductance is observed. To rigorously derive semiclassical equations of motion, one needs to systematically develop a magnetic Weyl calculus which contains a semiclassical parameter. Mat…
In this paper, we extend the upper and lower bounds for the "pseudo-distance" on quantum densities analogous to the quadratic Monge-Kantorovich(-Vasershtein) distance introduced in [F. Golse, C. Mouhot, T. Paul, Commun. Math. Phys. 343 (2016) 165-205] to positive quantizations defined in terms of the family of phase space translates of a density operator, not necessarily of rank one as in the case of the Töplitz quantization. As a corollary, we prove that the uniform (for vanishing h) convergence rate for the mean-field limit of the N-particle Heisenberg equation holds for a much wider class o…
There is currently a great deal of interest in the invisibility cloaks recently proposed by Pendry et al. that are based in the transformation approach. They obtained their results using first order transformations. In recent papers Hendi et al. and Cai et al. considered invisibility cloaks with high order transformations. In this paper we study high order electromagnetic invisibility cloaks in transformation media obtained by high order transformations from general anisotropic media. We consider the case where there is a finite number of spherical cloaks located in different points in space. …
In terms of the matrix valued Berry gauge field strength for the Weyl Hamiltonian in any even spacetime dimensions a symplectic form whose elements are matrices in spin indices is introduced. Definition of the volume form is modified appropriately. A simple method of finding the path integral measure and the chiral current in the presence of external electromagnetic fields is presented. It is shown that within this new approach the chiral magnetic effect as well as the chiral anomaly in even d+1 dimensions are accomplished straightforwardly.
