1. Introduction
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics the Green function or propagator gives the probability amplitude for a particle to travel from one spatial point at one time to another spatial point at a later time. The propagator can be calculated by the well-known methods of Feynman path integral 1 and Schwinger method 2-6. In 1975, V.V. Dodonov, I.A. Malkin, and V.I. Man’ko 7 presented the connection between the integrals of the motion of a quantum system and its Green function that is the eigenfunction of the integrals of the motion describing initial points of the system trajectory in the phase space. In 1977, V.V. Dodonov et al. 8 constructed a new method of calculating non-equilibrium density matrices with the aid of the quantum integrals of motion. D.B. Lemeshevskiy and V.I. Man’ko applied the integrals of the motion method to the problem of the driven harmonic oscillator in 2012 9.
The aim of this paper is to calculate the Green functions for the dual damped oscillators and the coupled harmonic oscillators by the integrals of the motion method. The organization of this paper are as follows. In Sec. 2, the Green function for the dual damped oscillators is derived. In Sec. 3, the Green function for the coupled harmonic oscillators is obtained with the aid of the integrals of the motion. Finally, the conclusion is presented in Sec. 4.
2. The Green function for a dual damped oscillators
The Bateman damped harmonic oscillator is described as an open system in which energy is dissipated by interaction with a heat bath 10. Bateman has shown that dissipative systems can be presented as a pair of damped oscillators, the so called dual damped oscillators. This system includes a primary one expressed by q1 variables and its time reversed image by q2 variables. The Hamiltonian operator for a dual damped oscillators can be expressed as
where k is the harmonic coefficients and γ is a damping coefficient.
The aim of this section is to derive the Green function G(x1,x2,x′1,x′2,t) of the Schrödinger equation by the method of integrals of the motion 7-9. The classical equation of motion for this system are
The classical paths in the phase space under the initial conditions q1(0) = q10, q2(0) = q20, p 1(0) = p10, and p2(0) = p20 are given by
Where
The variables q1, q2, p1, p2, and t are taken as the parameters. The solution of this system can be written as the operator in Hilbert space as
The operators
where Î maybe
where the operators on the left-hand sides of the equations act on variables x1 and x2, and on the right-hand sides, on x′1 and x′2. Now we write Eqs. (13)-(16) explicitly,
By modifying Eqs. (17)-(20), the system of equation for deriving the Green function G(x1 , x2 , x′1 , x′2 , t) are
Now one can integrate Eq. (21) with respect to the variable x 2 to obtain
where C(x1 , x′1 , x′2 , t) is the function of x1 , x′1 , x′2 , and t. Substituting Eq. (25) into Eq. (22) to obtain C (x1 , x′ 1 , x′2 , t), the result is
So, the Green in Eq. (25) can be written as
The next step is substituting the Green function in Eq. (27) into Eq. (23) to obtain C(x′1 , x′2 , t) as
Thus, the Green function in Eq. (27) becomes
Substituting the Green function in Eq. (29) into Eq. (24) to obtain C(x′2 , t), the result is
So, it can be implied that C(x′2 ,t) = C(t). The Green function in Eq. (29) can be expressed as
To find C(t), we must substitute the Green function of Eq. (31) into the Schrodinger equation
After some algebra, we obtain an equation
Equation (33) can be simply integrated with respect to time t, and one obtains
where C is a constant. Substituting Eq. (34) into Eq. (31) and applying the initial condition
we obtain
So, the Green function for a dual damped oscillator is
which is the same form as the result of S. Pepore and B. Suk-bot calculated by the Schwinger method 5.
3. The Green function for the coupled harmonic oscillators
Considering a system of two harmonic oscillators which are coupled together by another spring. Assuming that the masses of the oscillators and three spring constants are all the same. Let their displacements be q1 and q2. The Hamiltonian operator for the coupled harmonic oscillator can be written as 6.
where ω is the constant frequency. The classical equations of motion determining the oscillator positions and momentums are
The classical paths in the phase space under the initial conditions q1 (0) = q10, q2 (0) = q20 , p1 (0) = p10, and p2 (0) = p20 are
Now we consider the system of Eqs. (41)-(44) as an algebraic system for unknown initial positions q10 and q20 and initial momentums p10 and p20. The variables q1 , q2 , p1 , p2, and t are taken as the parameters. The solution of this system can be written as the operator in Hilbert space as
The operators
By modifying Eqs. (49)-(52), the system of equations for deriving the Green function G(x1 , x2 , x′1 , x′2 , t) are
Now we can integrate Eq. (53) with respect to the variable x1 to obtain
where C(x′1 , x2 , x′2 , t) is the function of x′ 1 , x 2 , x′ 2 , and t. Substituting Eq. (57) into Eq. (54) to find C(x′ 1 , x 2 , x′ 2 , t), we get
So, the Green function in Eq. (57) can be written as
Substituting Eq. (59) into Eq. (55), we obtain
Thus, the Green function of Eq. (59) becomes
Substituting Eq. (61) into Eq. (56), we get
So, the Green function in Eq. (61) can be written as
To find C(t), we must substitute the Green function of Eq. (63) into the Schrödinger equation
After some algebra, we obtain an equation
Integrating Eq. (65) with respect to time, we obtain
where C is a constant.
Substituting Eq. (66) into Eq. (63) and applying the initial condition in Eq. (35), the constant C is
So, the Green function for a coupled harmonic oscillator can be expressed as
which is the same form as the calculation of S. Pepore and B. Sukbot by the Schwinger method 6.
4. Conclusion
The method in calculating the Green functions with the aid of integrals of the motion presented in this article can be successfully applied in solving the dual damped oscillator and the coupled harmonic oscillator problems. This method has the crucial steps in deriving the integrals of the motions
In fact, this method has many common features with the Schwinger method 3-6, but the Schwinger method uses the operator
In the Feynman path integral 1, the pre-exponential function C(t) comes from sum over all fluctuating paths that depend on calculation of the functional integration while in the integrals of the motion method this term appears from solving the Schrodinger equation of Green function. In the Schwinger formalism 2-6, the pre-exponential function C(t) arises from the commutation relation of