Published November 1979 | Version v1
Journal article

Accurate energy levels for the anharmonic oscillator and a summable series for the double-well potential in perturbation theory

Creators

  • 1. Department of Physics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912

Description

We introduce a generalization of Wick-ordering which maps the anharmonic oscillator (AO) Hamiltonian for mass m and coupling lambda exactly into a ''Wick-ordered'' Hamiltonian with an effective mass M which is a simple analytic function of lambda and m. The effective coupling Λ=lambda/M3 is bounded. We transform the AO perturbation series in lambda into one in Λ. This series may then be summed using Borel summation methods. We also introduce a new summation method for the AO series (which is a practical necessity to obtain accurate energy levels of the excited states). We obtain a numerical accuracy for (E/sub P/T--E/sub e/xact)/ E/sub e/xact of at least 10-7 (using 20 orders of perturbation theory) and 10-3 (using only 2 orders of perturbation theory) for all couplings and all energy levels of the anharmonic oscillator. The methods are applicable also to the double-well potential (DWP, the AO with a negative mass-squared). The only change is that now the effective coupling is unbounded as lambda→0. The series in Λ is, however, still summable. The relative accuracy in the energy levels for 20 orders of perturbation theory varies from 10-7 for large coupling to 1% at lambda=0.1 and to 10% at lambda=.05. We also present results for the sextic oscillator

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Ann. Phys. (N.Y.)
Journal Volume
123
Journal Issue
1
Series
Ann. Phys. (N.Y.).
Journal Page Range
153-184
ISSN
0003-4916

INIS

Country of Publication
United States
Country of Input or Organization
United States
INIS RN
11542156
Subject category
S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS;
Descriptors DEI
FEYNMAN PATH INTEGRAL; HAMILTONIANS; OSCILLATORS; PERTURBATION THEORY; SQUARE-WELL POTENTIAL; WICK THEOREM
Descriptors DEC
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT; INTEGRALS; MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS; NUCLEAR POTENTIAL; QUANTUM OPERATORS