English

Lorentzian path integral for quantum tunneling and WKB approximation for wave-function

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2022-05-12 v4 High Energy Physics - Theory Quantum Physics

Abstract

Recently, the Lorentzian path integral formulation using the Picard-Lefschetz theory has attracted much attention in quantum cosmology. In this paper, we analyze the tunneling amplitude in quantum mechanics by using the Lorentzian Picard-Lefschetz formulation and compare it with the WKB analysis of the conventional Schr\"{o}dinger equation. We show that the Picard-Lefschetz Lorentzian formulation is consistent with the WKB approximation for wave-function and the Euclidean path integral formulation utilizing the solutions of the Euclidean constraint equation. We also consider some problems of this Lorentzian Picard-Lefschetz formulation and discuss a simpler semiclassical approximation of the Lorentzian path integral without integrating the lapse function.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.09767,
  title  = {Lorentzian path integral for quantum tunneling and WKB approximation for wave-function},
  author = {Hiroki Matsui},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.09767},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

14 pages, 14 figures; fixed typos, added figures, updated discussion

R2 v1 2026-06-23T23:18:59.062Z