English

Feynman-diagrammatic description of the asymptotics of the time evolution operator in quantum mechanics

Mathematical Physics 2010-10-28 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory math.MP Quantum Physics

Abstract

We describe the "Feynman diagram" approach to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics on R^n, with magnetic and potential terms. In particular, for each classical path \gamma connecting points q_0 and q_1 in time t, we define a formal power series V_\gamma(t,q_0,q_1) in \hbar, given combinatorially by a sum of diagrams that each represent finite-dimensional convergent integrals. We prove that exp(V_\gamma) satisfies Schr\"odinger's equation, and explain in what sense the t\to 0 limit approaches the \delta distribution. As such, our construction gives explicitly the full \hbar\to 0 asymptotics of the fundamental solution to Schr\"odinger's equation in terms of solutions to the corresponding classical system. These results justify the heuristic expansion of Feynman's path integral in diagrams.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1003.1156,
  title  = {Feynman-diagrammatic description of the asymptotics of the time evolution operator in quantum mechanics},
  author = {Theo Johnson-Freyd},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.1156},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

21 pages. Many diagrams drawn in TikZ. To appear in Letters in Mathematical Physics