English

Perturbation theory without power series: iterative construction of non-analytic operator spectra

Quantum Physics 2022-12-19 v6 Other Condensed Matter High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

It is well known that quantum-mechanical perturbation theory often give rise to divergent series that require proper resummation. Here I discuss simple ways in which these divergences can be avoided in the first place. Using the elementary technique of relaxed fixed-point iteration, I obtain convergent expressions for various challenging ground states wavefunctions, including quartic, sextic and octic anharmonic oscillators, the hydrogenic Zeeman problem, and the Herbst-Simon Hamiltonian (with finite energy but vanishing Rayleigh-Schr\"odinger coefficients), all at arbitarily strong coupling. These results challenge the notion that non-analytic functions of coupling constants are intrinsically "non-perturbative". A possible application to exact diagonalization is briefly discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.04972,
  title  = {Perturbation theory without power series: iterative construction of non-analytic operator spectra},
  author = {Matteo Smerlak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.04972},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table + SI in source files