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An Elementary Derivation of the Harmonic Oscillator Propagator

General Physics 2009-11-10 v1

Abstract

The harmonic oscillator propagator is found straightforwardly from the free particle propagator, within the imaginary-time Feynman path integral formalism. The derivation presented here is extremely simple, requiring only elementary mathematical manipulations and no clever use of Hermite polynomials, annihilation & creation operators, cumbersome determinant evaluations or any kind of involved algebra.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0402069,
  title  = {An Elementary Derivation of the Harmonic Oscillator Propagator},
  author = {L. Moriconi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0402069},
  year   = {2009}
}

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R2 v1 2026-07-22T18:58:33.519Z