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The quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary smooth potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point , it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics.
The quantum harmonic oscillator (and hence the coherent states) arise in the quantum theory of a wide range of physical systems. [2] For instance, a coherent state describes the oscillating motion of a particle confined in a quadratic potential well (for an early reference, see e.g. Schiff's textbook [3]). The coherent state describes a state ...
Some expanded derivations and an example of the harmonic oscillator in the Heisenberg picture ; The original Heisenberg paper translated (although difficult to read, it contains an example for the anharmonic oscillator): Sources of Quantum mechanics B.L. Van Der Waerden
A simple harmonic oscillator is an oscillator that is neither driven nor damped.It consists of a mass m, which experiences a single force F, which pulls the mass in the direction of the point x = 0 and depends only on the position x of the mass and a constant k.
In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the propagator is a function that specifies the probability amplitude for a particle to travel from one place to another in a given period of time, or to travel with a certain energy and momentum.
In these terms, an example of zero-point energy is the above E = ħω / 2 associated with the ground state of the quantum harmonic oscillator. In quantum mechanical terms, the zero-point energy is the expectation value of the Hamiltonian of the system in the ground state. If more than one ground state exists, they are said to be ...
The dynamical symmetry group of the n dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator is the special unitary group SU(n). As an example, the number of infinitesimal generators of the corresponding Lie algebras of SU(2) and SU(3) are three and eight respectively.
In the special case of the quantum harmonic oscillator, however, the evolution is simple and appears identical to the classical motion: a rigid rotation in phase space with a frequency given by the oscillator frequency. This is illustrated in the gallery below.