arXiv subjects

J. Main

Publications and source records attributed to J. Main.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Significance of Ghost Orbit Bifurcations in Semiclassical Spectra

Gutzwiller's trace formula for the semiclassical density of states in a chaotic system diverges near bifurcations of periodic orbits, where it must be replaced with uniform approximations. It is well known that, when applying these approximations, complex predecessors of orbits created in the bifurcation ("ghost orbits") can produce pronounced signatures in the semiclassical spectra in the vicinity of the bifurcation. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that these ghost orbits themselves can undergo bifurcations, resulting in complex, nongeneric bifurcation scenarios. We do so by studying an example taken from the Diamagnetic Kepler Problem, viz. the period quadrupling of the balloon orbit. By application of normal form theory we construct an analytic description of the complete bifurcation scenario, which is then used to calculate the pertinent uniform approximation. The ghost orbit bifurcation turns out to produce signatures in the semiclassical spectrum in much the same way as a bifurcation of real orbits would.

chao-dyn↗

arXiv1999

Semiclassical Calculation of Transition Matrix Elements for Atoms in External Fields

Closed orbit theory is generalized to the semiclassical calculation of cross-correlated recurrence functions for atoms in external fields. The cross-correlation functions are inverted by a high resolution spectral analyzer to obtain the semiclassical eigenenergies and transition matrix elements. The method is demonstrated for dipole transitions of the hydrogen atom in a magnetic field. This is the first semiclassical calculation of individual quantum transition strengths from closed orbit theory.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1998

hbar expansion for the periodic orbit quantization by harmonic inversion

Semiclassical spectra beyond the Gutzwiller and Berry-Tabor approximation for chaotic and regular systems, respectively, are obtained by harmonic inversion of the hbar expansion of the periodic orbit signal. The method is illustrated for the circle billiard, where the semiclassical error is reduced by one to several orders of magnitude with respect to the lowest order approximation used previously.

chao-dyn↗

arXiv1998

Harmonic inversion as a general method for periodic orbit quantization

In semiclassical theories for chaotic systems such as Gutzwiller's periodic orbit theory the energy eigenvalues and resonances are obtained as poles of a non-convergent series g(w)=sum_n A_n exp(i s_n w). We present a general method for the analytic continuation of such a non-convergent series by harmonic inversion of the "time" signal, which is the Fourier transform of g(w). We demonstrate the general applicability and accuracy of the method on two different systems with completely different properties: the Riemann zeta function and the three disk scattering system. The Riemann zeta function serves as a mathematical model for a bound system. We demonstrate that the method of harmonic inversion by filter-diagonalization yields several thousand zeros of the zeta function to about 12 digit precision as eigenvalues of small matrices. However, the method is not restricted to bound and ergodic systems, and does not require the knowledge of the mean staircase function, i.e., the Weyl term in dynamical systems, which is a prerequisite in many semiclassical quantization conditions. It can therefore be applied to open systems as well. We demonstrate this on the three disk scattering system, as a physical example. The general applicability of the method is emphasized by the fact that one does not have to resort a symbolic dynamics, which is, in turn, the basic requirement for the application of cycle expansion techniques.

chao-dyn↗

arXiv1998

Uniform semiclassical approximations for umbilic bifurcation catastrophes

Gutzwiller's trace formula for the semiclassical density of states diverges at the bifurcation points of periodic orbits and has to be replaced with uniform semiclassical approximations. We present a method to derive these expressions from the standard representations of the elementary catastrophes and to directly relate the uniform solutions to classical periodic orbit parameters, thereby circumventing the numerical application of normal form theory. The technique allows an easy handling of ungeneric bifurcations with corank 2 such as the umbilic catastrophes and is demonstrated on a hyperbolic umbilic in the diamagnetic Kepler problem.

chao-dyn↗