Semiclassical trace formulae

Describing complex wave-packet motion on the two coupled potential energy surfaces, this quantity is also of interest since it can be monitored in femtosecond pump-probe experiments [163]. In fact, it has been shown in Ref. 126 employing again the quasi-classical approximation (104) that the time-and frequency-resolved stimulated emission spectrum is nicely reproduced by the PO calculation. Hence vibronic POs may provide a clear and physically appealing interpretation of femtosecond experiments reflecting coherent electron transfer. We note that POs have also been used in semiclassical trace formulas to calculate spectral response functions [3]. 

Rather than looking at the spectrum obtained from the secular determinant (5), we will here consider the spectrum SG for fixed wavenumber k and than average over k. One can write the spectrum in terms of a periodic orbit trace formula reminiscent to the celebrate Gutzwiller trace formula being a semiclassical approximation of the trace of the Green function (Gutzwiller 1990). We write the density of states in terms of the traces of SG, that is,... 

In fact, the latter is the leading contribution to Gutzwiller s trace formula (Gut-zwiller, 1990), namely the contribution of the two-bounce periodic orbit between the two spheres without repetition, with the action Spo(k) = 2(r—2d)k where 2 (r — 2a) is the length of the geometric path. Note that the semiclassical result is suppressed by a factor of 1/4 in comparison to the small-scatterer one. 

Since the birth of quantum theory, there has been considerable interest in the transition from quantum to classical mechanics. Because the two formulations are given in a different theoretical framework (nonlinear classical trajectories versus expectation values of linear operators), this transition is far more involved than the naive limit —> 0 suggests. By exploring the classical limit of quantum mechanics, new theoretical concepts have been developed, including path integrals [1], various phase-space representations of quantum mechanics [2], the semiclassical propagator and the trace formula [3], and the notion of quantum... 

Moreover, new semiclassical methods have been developed that are based on the Gutzwiller and Berry-Tabor trace formulas [12, 13]. These methods allow the calculation of energy levels or quantum resonances in systems with many interfering periodic orbits, as is the case for chaotic dynamics. 

The interrelations between the propagator, the resolvent, and the level density will be central to our discussion. In particular, the trace formulas referred to in Section I represent semiclassical approximations to the quantities (2.6) or (2.7) and turn out to involve the periodic orbits of the classical dynamics. 

The highly excited and reactive dynamics, the details of which have been made accessible by recently developed experimental techniques, are characterized by transitions between classically regular and chaotic regimes. Now molecular spectroscopy has traditionally relied on perturbation expansions to characterize molecular energy spectra, but such expansions may not be valid if the corresponding classical dynamics turns out to be chaotic. This leads us to a reconsideration of such perturbation techniques and provides the starting point for our discussion. From there, we will proceed to discuss the Gutzwiller trace formula, which provides a semiclassical description of classically chaotic systems. 

Gutzwiller trace formula should present a peak. At the leading order, the amplitude is predicted to have a divergence because some stability eigenvalues pass through = 1 so that the denominator vanishes in Eq. (2.13). Consequently, uniform semiclassical approximations are required in the vicinity of bifurcations, which show that the amplitude is strongly peaked but still remains finite. 

As we discussed in Section II in relation to (2.41), a survival amplitude has a semiclassical behavior that is directly related to the periodic orbits by the Gutzwiller or the Berry-Tabor trace formulas, in contrast to the quasi-classical quantities (2.42) or (3.3). Therefore, we may expect the function (3.7) to present peaks on the intermediate time scale that are related to the classical periodic orbits. For such peaks to be located at the periodic orbits periods, we have to assume that die level density is well approximated as a sum over periodic orbits whose periods Tp = 3eSp and amplitudes vary slowly over the energy window [ - e, E + e]. A further assumption is that the energy window contains a sufficient number of energy levels. At short times, the semiclassical theory allows us to obtain... 

We will start by describing the relevant aspects of the classical dynamics, introducing the concepts of the invariant set and the repeller, the Smale horseshoe and its symbolic dynamics, and the bifurcations at their origin [19]. We then turn to the semiclassical quantization based on the Gutzwiller trace formula and the zeta functions. We proceed to show how this new theoretical framework allows us to explain the distribution of resonances in several molecules like Hgl2, CO2, and H3, to calculate their lifetimes, and to provide a synthesis with respect to previous work. 

About 50 years after Einstein, Gutzwiller applied the path integral method with a semiclassical approximation and succeeded to derive an approximate quantization condition for the system that has fully chaotic classical counterpart. His formula expresses the density of states in terms of unstable periodic orbits. It is now called the Gutzwiller trace formula [9,10]. In the last two decades, several physicists tested the Gutzwiiler trace formula for various... 

Quantum calculations for a classically chaotic system are extremely hard to perform. If more than just the ground state and a few excited states are required, semiclassical methods may be employed. But it was not before the work of Gutzwiller about two decades ago that a semiclassical quantization scheme became available that is powerful enough to deal with chaos. Gutzwiller s central result is the trace formula which is derived in Section 4.1.3. 

Currently available numerical results indicate that the one-dimensional heUum atom is completely chaotic. The best-known semiclassical quantization procedure for completely chaotic systems is Gutzwiller s trace formula (see Section 4.1.3), which is based on classical periodic orbits. Therefore we search for simple periodic orbits of the one-dimensional he-hum atom. Since a two-electron orbit is periodic if the orbits ni t), 0i t)) and (ri2(t), 2( )) of the first and second electron have a common period, the periodic orbits of the one-dimensional model can be labelled with two integers, m and n, which count the 27r-multiplicity of the angle variables 0i and 02 after completion of the orbit. Therefore, if for some periodic orbit... 

Quantized chaos, or quantum chaology (see Section 4.1), is about understanding the quantum spectra and wave functions of classically chaotic systems. The semiclassical method is one of the sharpest tools of quantum chaology. As discussed in Section 4.1.3 the central problem of computing the semiclassical spectrum of a classically chaotic system was solved by Gutzwiller more than 20 years ago. His trace formula (4.1.72) is the basis for all semiclassical work on the quantization of chaotic systems. 

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