English

Classical and Quantum Modes of Coupled Mathieu Equations

Quantum Physics 2012-11-02 v2

Abstract

We expand the solutions of linearly coupled Mathieu equations in terms of infinite-continued matrix inversions, and use it to find the modes which diagonalize the dynamical problem. This allows obtaining explicitly the ('Floquet-Lyapunov') transformation to coordinates in which the motion is that of decoupled linear oscillators. We use this transformation to solve the Heisenberg equations of the corresponding quantum-mechanical problem, and find the quantum wavefunctions for stable oscillations, expressed in configuration-space. The obtained transformation and quantum solutions can be applied to more general linear systems with periodic coefficients (coupled Hill equations, periodically driven parametric oscillators), and to nonlinear systems as a starting point for convenient perturbative treatment of the nonlinearity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1206.0716,
  title  = {Classical and Quantum Modes of Coupled Mathieu Equations},
  author = {H. Landa and M. Drewsen and B. Reznik and A. Retzker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.0716},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

25 pages, v2 adds citations and small corrections

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:14:03.956Z