Semiclassical Asymptotics of Oscillating Tunneling for a Quadratic Hamiltonian on the Algebra~$\operatorname{su}(1,1)$

E. V. Vybornyi ; S. V. Rumyantseva

Matematičeskie zametki, Tome 112 (2022) no. 5, pp. 665-681

Résumé

In this paper, we consider the problem of constructing semiclassical asymptotics for the tunnel splitting of the spectrum of an operator defined on an irreducible representation of the Lie algebra $\operatorname{su}(1,1)$. It is assumed that the operator is a quadratic function of the generators of the algebra. We present coherent states and a unitary coherent transform that allow us to reduce the problem to the analysis of a second-order differential operator in the space of holomorphic functions. Semiclassical asymptotic spectral series and the corresponding wave functions are constructed as decompositions in coherent states. For some values of the system parameters, the minimal energy corresponds to a pair of nondegenerate equilibria, and the discrete spectrum of the operator has an exponentially small tunnel splitting of the levels. We apply the complex WKB method to prove asymptotic formulas for the tunnel splitting of the energies. We also show that, in contrast to the one-dimensional Schrödinger operator, the tunnel splitting in this problem not only decays exponentially but also contains an oscillating factor, which can be interpreted as tunneling interference between distinct instantons. We also show that, for some parameter values, the tunneling is completely suppressed and some of the spectral levels are doubly degenerate, which is not typical of one-dimensional systems.

Détail

Keywords: semiclassical approximation, WKB method, tunnel splitting.