Schwinger-Keldysh path integral for the quantum harmonic oscillator
High Energy Physics - Theory
2021-02-10 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
I review the generating function for quantum-statistical mechanics, known as the Feynman-Vernon influence functional, the decoherence functional, or the Schwinger-Keldysh path integral. I describe a probability-conserving prescription from a path-integral implementation of Lindblad evolution. I also explain how to generalize the formalism to accommodate out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs), leading to a Larkin-Ovchinnikov path integral. My goal is to provide step-by-step calculations of path integrals associated to the harmonic oscillator.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.05029,
title = {Schwinger-Keldysh path integral for the quantum harmonic oscillator},
author = {Yoni BenTov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.05029},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
112 pages, 1 figure