English

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 iεi\varepsilon 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

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:59:35.436Z