Improving the variational path integral approach to the quantum double-well potential

An improved variational path integral approach is developed and applied to the quantum double-well potential, in which part of the quartic term of the potential is included in the trial action. The expression of the effective classical potential (ECP) under a non-Gaussian expectation is obtained. Here the frequency and fourth-order derivative of the potential are treated as two variational parameters, determined by the minimization of the ECP at each point. We calculate the ECP, the free energy and the level splitting of a symmetrical double-well potential. It is shown that the present results are better than those of the Feynman-Kleinert Gaussian variational method. (author)