Quantum harmonic oscillator

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. Furthermore, it is
one of the few quantum-mechanical systems for which an
exact, analytical solution is known.[1][2][3]

Contents
One-dimensional harmonic oscillator
Hamiltonian and energy eigenstates
Ladder operator method
Analytical questions
Natural length and energy scales
Coherent states
Highly excited states
Phase space solutions Some trajectories of a harmonic oscillator
according to Newton's laws of classical mechanics
N-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator (A–B), and according to the Schrödinger equation
Example: 3D isotropic harmonic oscillator of quantum mechanics (C–H). In A–B, the particle
Applications (represented as a ball attached to a spring)
oscillates back and forth. In C–H, some solutions
Harmonic oscillators lattice: phonons
to the Schrödinger Equation are shown, where the
Molecular vibrations horizontal axis is position, and the vertical axis is
See also the real part (blue) or imaginary part (red) of the
wavefunction. C, D, E, F, but not G, H, are energy
References eigenstates. H is a coherent state—a quantum
External links state that approximates the classical trajectory.

One-dimensional harmonic oscillator

Hamiltonian and energy eigenstates

The Hamiltonian of the particle is:

where m is the particle's mass, k is the force constant, is

the angular frequency of the oscillator, is the position operator

(given by x), and is the momentum operator (given by
). The first term in the Hamiltonian represents the
kinetic energy of the particle, and the second term represents its
potential energy, as in Hooke's law.
Wavefunction representations for the
One may write the time-independent Schrödinger equation, first eight bound eigenstates, n = 0
to 7. The horizontal axis shows the
position x.

where E denotes a to-be-determined real number that will specify a

time-independent energy level, or eigenvalue, and the solution |ψ⟩
denotes that level's energy eigenstate.

One may solve the differential equation representing this eigenvalue

problem in the coordinate basis, for the wave function ⟨x|ψ⟩ = ψ(x),
using a spectral method. It turns out that there is a family of solutions.
In this basis, they amount to Hermite functions,

Corresponding probability densities.

The functions Hn are the physicists' Hermite polynomials,

The corresponding energy levels are

This energy spectrum is noteworthy for three reasons. First, the energies are quantized, meaning that only
discrete energy values (integer-plus-half multiples of ħω) are possible; this is a general feature of quantum-
mechanical systems when a particle is confined. Second, these discrete energy levels are equally spaced, unlike
in the Bohr model of the atom, or the particle in a box. Third, the lowest achievable energy (the energy of the
n = 0 state, called the ground state) is not equal to the minimum of the potential well, but ħω/2 above it; this
is called zero-point energy. Because of the zero-point energy, the position and momentum of the oscillator in
the ground state are not fixed (as they would be in a classical oscillator), but have a small range of variance, in
accordance with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

The ground state probability density is concentrated at the origin, which means the particle spends most of its
time at the bottom of the potential well, as one would expect for a state with little energy. As the energy
increases, the probability density peaks at the classical "turning points", where the state's energy coincides with
the potential energy. (See the discussion below of the highly excited states.) This is consistent with the classical
harmonic oscillator, in which the particle spends more of its time (and is therefore more likely to be found) near
the turning points, where it is moving the slowest. The correspondence principle is thus satisfied. Moreover,
special nondispersive wave packets, with minimum uncertainty, called coherent states oscillate very much like
classical objects, as illustrated in the figure; they are not eigenstates of the Hamiltonian.

Ladder operator method

The "ladder operator" method, developed by Paul Dirac, allows extraction of

the energy eigenvalues without directly solving the differential equation. It is
generalizable to more complicated problems, notably in quantum field theory.
Following this approach, we define the operators a and its adjoint a †,

Probability densities |
ψn(x)|2 for the bound
eigenstates, beginning with
the ground state (n = 0) at
This leads to the useful representation of and , the bottom and increasing
in energy toward the top.
The horizontal axis shows
the position x, and brighter
colors represent higher
probability densities.

The operator a is not Hermitian, since itself and its adjoint a † are not equal. The energy eigenstates |n⟩, when
operated on by these ladder operators, give

It is then evident that a † , in essence, appends a single quantum of energy to the oscillator, while a removes a
quantum. For this reason, they are sometimes referred to as "creation" and "annihilation" operators.

From the relations above, we can also define a number operator N, which has the following property:

The following commutators can be easily obtained by substituting the canonical commutation relation,

And the Hamilton operator can be expressed as

so the eigenstate of N is also the eigenstate of energy.

The commutation property yields

and similarly,

This means that a acts on |n⟩ to produce, up to a multiplicative constant, |n–1⟩, and a † acts on |n⟩ to
produce |n+1⟩. For this reason, a is called a annihilation operator ("lowering operator"), and a † a creation
operator ("raising operator"). The two operators together are called ladder operators. In quantum field theory,
a and a † are alternatively called "annihilation" and "creation" operators because they destroy and create
particles, which correspond to our quanta of energy.

Given any energy eigenstate, we can act on it with the lowering operator, a , to produce another eigenstate with
ħω less energy. By repeated application of the lowering operator, it seems that we can produce energy
eigenstates down to E = −∞ . However, since

the smallest eigen-number is 0, and

In this case, subsequent applications of the lowering operator will just produce zero kets, instead of additional
energy eigenstates. Furthermore, we have shown above that

Finally, by acting on |0⟩ with the raising operator and multiplying by suitable normalization factors, we can
produce an infinite set of energy eigenstates

such that

which matches the energy spectrum given in the preceding section.

Arbitrary eigenstates can be expressed in terms of |0⟩,

Proof:
Analytical questions

The preceding analysis is algebraic, using only the commutation relations between the raising and lowering
operators. Once the algebraic analysis is complete, one should turn to analytical questions. First, one should
find the ground state, that is, the solution of the equation . In the position representation, this is the
first-order differential equation

whose solution is easily found to be the Gaussian[4]

Conceptually, it is important that there is only one solution of this equation; if there were, say, two linearly
independent ground states, we would get two independent chains of eigenvectors for the harmonic oscillator.
Once the ground state is computed, one can show inductively that the excited states are Hermite polynomials
times the Gaussian ground state, using the explicit form of the raising operator in the position representation.
One can also prove that, as expected from the uniqueness of the ground state, the Hermite functions energy
eigenstates constructed by the ladder method form a complete orthonormal set of functions.[5]

Explicitly connecting with the previous section, the ground state |0⟩ in the position representation is determined
by ,

hence

so that , and so on.

Natural length and energy scales

The quantum harmonic oscillator possesses natural scales for length and energy, which can be used to simplify
the problem. These can be found by nondimensionalization.

The result is that, if energy is measured in units of ħω and distance in units of √ħ/(mω) , then the
Hamiltonian simplifies to
while the energy eigenfunctions and eigenvalues simplify to Hermite functions and integers offset by a half,

where Hn(x) are the Hermite polynomials.

To avoid confusion, these "natural units" will mostly not be adopted in this article. However, they frequently
come in handy when performing calculations, by bypassing clutter.

For example, the fundamental solution (propagator) of H−i∂t, the time-dependent Schrödinger operator for
this oscillator, simply boils down to the Mehler kernel,[6][7]

where K(x,y;0) =δ(x − y). The most general solution for a given initial configuration ψ(x,0) then is simply

Coherent states

The coherent states of the harmonic oscillator are special

nondispersive wave packets, with minimum uncertainty σx σp = ℏ⁄2,
whose observables' expectation values evolve like a classical system.
They are eigenvectors of the annihilation operator, not the
Hamiltonian, and form an overcomplete basis which consequentially
lacks orthogonality.

The coherent states are indexed by α ∈ ℂ and expressed in the |n⟩

Time evolution of the probability
basis as distribution (and phase, shown as
color) of a coherent state with |α|=3.

Because and via the Kermack-McCrae identity, the last form is equivalent to a unitary displacement
operator acting on the ground state: . The position space wave functions are

.
Since coherent states are not energy eigenstates, their time evolution is not a simple shift in wavefunction
phase. The time-evolved states are, however, also coherent states but with phase-shifting parameter α instead:
.

Highly excited states

Wavefunction (top) and probability density (bottom) for the n = 30 excited state of the quantum harmonic
oscillator. Vertical dashed lines indicate the classical turning points, while the dotted line represents the classical
probability density.

When n is large, the eigenstates are localized into the classical allowed region, that is, the region in which a
classical particle with energy En can move. The eigenstates are peaked near the turning points: the points at
the ends of the classically allowed region where the classical particle changes direction. This phenomenon can
be verified through asymptotics of the Hermite polynomials, and also through the WKB approximation.

The frequency of oscillation at x is proportional to the momentum p(x) of a classical particle of energy En and
position x. Furthermore, the square of the amplitude (determining the probability density) is inversely
proportional to p(x), reflecting the length of time the classical particle spends near x. The system behavior in a
small neighborhood of the turning point does not have a simple classical explanation, but can be modeled
using an Airy function. Using properties of the Airy function, one may estimate the probability of finding the
particle outside the classically allowed region, to be approximately

This is also given, asymptotically, by the integral

Phase space solutions

In the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics, eigenstates of the quantum harmonic oscillator in
several different representations of the quasiprobability distribution can be written in closed form. The most
widely used of these is for the Wigner quasiprobability distribution.

The Wigner quasiprobability distribution for the energy eigenstate |n⟩ is, in the natural units described above,

where Ln are the Laguerre polynomials. This example illustrates how the Hermite and Laguerre polynomials
are linked through the Wigner map.

Meanwhile, the Husimi Q function of the harmonic oscillator eigenstates have an even simpler form. If we
work in the natural units described above, we have

This claim can be verified using the Segal–Bargmann transform. Specifically, since the raising operator in the
Segal–Bargmann representation is simply multiplication by and the ground state is the constant
function 1, the normalized harmonic oscillator states in this representation are simply . At this point,
we can appeal to the formula for the Husimi Q function in terms of the Segal–Bargmann transform.

N-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator

The one-dimensional harmonic oscillator is readily generalizable to N dimensions, where N = 1, 2, 3, .... In
one dimension, the position of the particle was specified by a single coordinate, x. In N dimensions, this is
replaced by N position coordinates, which we label x1, ..., xN. Corresponding to each position coordinate is a
momentum; we label these p 1, ..., p N. The canonical commutation relations between these operators are

The Hamiltonian for this system is

As the form of this Hamiltonian makes clear, the N-dimensional harmonic oscillator is exactly analogous to N
independent one-dimensional harmonic oscillators with the same mass and spring constant. In this case, the
quantities x1, ..., xN would refer to the positions of each of the N particles. This is a convenient property of
the r2 potential, which allows the potential energy to be separated into terms depending on one coordinate
each.

This observation makes the solution straightforward. For a particular set of quantum numbers
the energy eigenfunctions for the N-dimensional oscillator are expressed in terms
of the 1-dimensional eigenfunctions as:

In the ladder operator method, we define N sets of ladder operators,

By an analogous procedure to the one-dimensional case, we can then show that each of the a i and a † i
operators lower and raise the energy by ℏω respectively. The Hamiltonian is

This Hamiltonian is invariant under the dynamic symmetry group U(N) (the unitary group in N dimensions),
defined by

where is an element in the defining matrix representation of U(N).

The energy levels of the system are

As in the one-dimensional case, the energy is quantized. The ground state energy is N times the one-
dimensional ground energy, as we would expect using the analogy to N independent one-dimensional
oscillators. There is one further difference: in the one-dimensional case, each energy level corresponds to a
unique quantum state. In N-dimensions, except for the ground state, the energy levels are degenerate, meaning
there are several states with the same energy.

The degeneracy can be calculated relatively easily. As an example, consider the 3-dimensional case: Define
n = n1 + n2 + n3. All states with the same n will have the same energy. For a given n, we choose a
particular n 1. Then n 2 + n 3 = n − n 1. There are n − n 1 + 1 possible pairs { n 2, n 3 }. n 2 can take on the
values 0 to n − n 1, and for each n 2 the value of n 3 is fixed. The degree of degeneracy therefore is:
Formula for general N and n [g n being the dimension of the symmetric irreducible n th power representation
of the unitary group U(N)]:

The special case N = 3, given above, follows directly from this general equation. This is however, only true for
distinguishable particles, or one particle in N dimensions (as dimensions are distinguishable). For the case of N
bosons in a one-dimension harmonic trap, the degeneracy scales as the number of ways to partition an integer
n using integers less than or equal to N.

This arises due to the constraint of putting N quanta into a state ket where and ,

which are the same constraints as in integer partition.

Example: 3D isotropic harmonic oscillator

The Schrödinger equation for a particle in a spherically-symmetric three-dimensional harmonic oscillator can
be solved explicitly by separation of variables; see this article for the present case. This procedure is analogous
to the separation performed in the hydrogen-like atom problem, but with the spherically symmetric potential

where μ is the mass of the particle. Because m will be used below for the magnetic quantum number, mass is
indicated by μ , instead of m, as earlier in this article.

The solution reads[8]

where

is a normalization constant; ;

are generalized Laguerre polynomials; The order k of the polynomial is a non-negative integer;

is a spherical harmonic function;

ħ is the reduced Planck constant:

The energy eigenvalue is

The energy is usually described by the single quantum
number

Because k is a non-negative integer, for every even n we

have ℓ = 0, 2, ..., n − 2, n and for every odd n we
have ℓ = 1, 3, ..., n − 2, n . The magnetic quantum
number m is an integer satisfying −ℓ ≤ m ≤ ℓ , so for
every n and ℓ there are 2ℓ + 1 different quantum states,
labeled by m . Thus, the degeneracy at level n is

where the sum starts from 0 or 1, according to whether n

is even or odd. This result is in accordance with the
dimension formula above, and amounts to the
dimensionality of a symmetric representation of
SU(3),[9] the relevant degeneracy group.

Applications

Harmonic oscillators lattice: phonons

We can extend the notion of a harmonic oscillator to a

one-dimensional lattice of many particles. Consider a
one-dimensional quantum mechanical harmonic chain of
N identical atoms. This is the simplest quantum
mechanical model of a lattice, and we will see how
phonons arise from it. The formalism that we will
develop for this model is readily generalizable to two and
three dimensions.

As in the previous section, we denote the positions of the

masses by x1,x2,..., as measured from their equilibrium Schrödinger 3D spherical harmonic orbital
positions (i.e. xi = 0 if the particle i is at its equilibrium solutions in 2D density plots; the Mathematica
source code that used for generating the plots is at
position). In two or more dimensions, the xi are vector
the top
quantities. The Hamiltonian for this system is

where m is the (assumed uniform) mass of each atom, and xi and p i are the position and momentum operators
for the i th atom and the sum is made over the nearest neighbors (nn). However, it is customary to rewrite the
Hamiltonian in terms of the normal modes of the wavevector rather than in terms of the particle coordinates so
that one can work in the more convenient Fourier space.

We introduce, then, a set of N "normal coordinates" Qk, defined as the discrete Fourier transforms of the xs,
and N "conjugate momenta" Π defined as the Fourier transforms of the p s,

The quantity kn will turn out to be the wave number of the phonon, i.e. 2π divided by the wavelength. It takes
on quantized values, because the number of atoms is finite.

This preserves the desired commutation relations in either real space or wave vector space

From the general result

it is easy to show, through elementary trigonometry, that the potential energy term is

where

The Hamiltonian may be written in wave vector space as

Note that the couplings between the position variables have been transformed away; if the Qs and Πs were
hermitian(which they are not), the transformed Hamiltonian would describe N uncoupled harmonic oscillators.

The form of the quantization depends on the choice of boundary conditions; for simplicity, we impose periodic
boundary conditions, defining the (N + 1)th atom as equivalent to the first atom. Physically, this corresponds
to joining the chain at its ends. The resulting quantization is
The upper bound to n comes from the minimum wavelength, which is twice the lattice spacing a , as discussed
above.

The harmonic oscillator eigenvalues or energy levels for the mode ωk are

If we ignore the zero-point energy then the levels are evenly spaced at

So an exact amount of energy ħω, must be supplied to the harmonic oscillator lattice to push it to the next
energy level. In comparison to the photon case when the electromagnetic field is quantised, the quantum of
vibrational energy is called a phonon.

All quantum systems show wave-like and particle-like properties. The particle-like properties of the phonon
are best understood using the methods of second quantization and operator techniques described later.[10]

In the continuum limit, a→0, N→∞, while Na is held fixed. The canonical coordinates Qk devolve to the
decoupled momentum modes of a scalar field, , whilst the location index i (not the displacement dynamical
variable) becomes the parameter x argument of the scalar field, .

Molecular vibrations
The vibrations of a diatomic molecule are an example of a two-body version of the quantum
harmonic oscillator. In this case, the angular frequency is given by

where is the reduced mass and and are the masses of the two

atoms.[11]

The Hooke's atom is a simple model of the helium atom using the quantum harmonic oscillator.
Modelling phonons, as discussed above.
A charge , with mass , in a uniform magnetic field , is an example of a one-dimensional
quantum harmonic oscillator: the Landau quantization.

See also
Quantum pendulum
Quantum machine
Gas in a harmonic trap
Creation and annihilation operators
Coherent state
 Morse potential
Bertrand's theorem
Mehler kernel
Molecular vibration

References
1. Griffiths, David J. (2004). Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (https://archive.org/details/introdu
ctiontoel00grif_0) (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-805326-0.
2. Liboff, Richard L. (2002). Introductory Quantum Mechanics. Addison–Wesley. ISBN 978-0-
8053-8714-8.
3. Rashid, Muneer A. (2006). "Transition amplitude for time-dependent linear harmonic oscillator
with Linear time-dependent terms added to the Hamiltonian" (http://www.ncp.edu.pk/docs/12th_
rgdocs/Munir-Rasheed.pdf) (PDF-Microsoft PowerPoint). M.A. Rashid – Center for Advanced
Mathematics and Physics. National Center for Physics. Retrieved 19 October 2010.

4. The normalization constant is , and satisfies the normalization condition

5. See Theorem 11.4 in Hall, Brian C. (2013), Quantum Theory for Mathematicians, Graduate
Texts in Mathematics, 267, Springer, ISBN 978-1461471158
6. Pauli, W. (2000), Wave Mechanics: Volume 5 of Pauli Lectures on Physics (Dover Books on
Physics). ISBN 978-0486414621 ; Section 44.
7. Condon, E. U. (1937). "Immersion of the Fourier transform in a continuous group of functional
transformations", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 23, 158–164. online (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC1076889/pdf/pnas01779-0028.pdf)
8. Albert Messiah, Quantum Mechanics, 1967, North-Holland, Ch XII, § 15, p 456.online (https://ar
chive.org/details/QuantumMechanicsVolumeI/page/n239)
9. Fradkin, D. M. "Three-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator and SU3." American Journal of
Physics 33 (3) (1965) 207–211.
10. Mahan, GD (1981). many particle physics. New York: springer. ISBN 978-0306463389.
11. "Quantum Harmonic Oscillator" (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hosc.htm
l). Hyperphysics. Retrieved 24 September 2009.

External links
Quantum Harmonic Oscillator (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hosc.html)
Rationale for choosing the ladder operators (http://behindtheguesses.blogspot.com/2009/03/qu
antum-harmonic-oscillator-ladder.html)
Live 3D intensity plots of quantum harmonic oscillator (http://www.brummerblogs.com/curvatur
e/3d-harmonic-oscillator-eigenfunctions/)
Driven and damped quantum harmonic oscillator (lecture notes of course "quantum optics in
electric circuits") (http://ltl.tkk.fi/~ethuneb/courses/monqo.pdf)

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