Coherent States of the Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

1. Nov 19, 2008

arhanbezbora

Does anyone know why a harmonic potential gives rise to coherent states? In other words, what is special about a quadratic potential that causes the shifted ground state to oscillate like a classical particle without dispersing so as to saturate the uncertainty principle? Any help or insight would be much appreciated. Thanks

~Arhan

2. Nov 19, 2008

strangerep

It comes from the underlying dynamical symmetry algebra for this system, which in this
case is the Heisenberg algebra. One can generalize the whole concept of coherent states
to other systems (with different dynamical symmetry groups).

3. Nov 19, 2008

Avodyne

One requirement is that the energy eigenvalues be spaced by integer multiples of some energy $\hbar\omega$ so that the quantum state is exactly periodic with period $2\pi/\omega$. This is necessary but not sufficient, since the wave functions could still spread out at intermediate times. (This is what happens for a one-dimensional particle in a box.)

strangerep, I thought the Heisenberg algebra was [x,p]=c; how does that help us see that the harmonic oscillator has coherent states?

4. Nov 21, 2008

arhanbezbora

yea, im a little confused as to how the canonical commutation relation allows a quadratic potential to have coherent states?

5. Nov 24, 2008

Manchot

^ You can derive the existence of number states from the canonical commutation relations and the quadratic form of the Hamiltonian alone. Once you have the number states, it is a trivial matter to find the coherent states in terms of them.

6. Nov 28, 2008

strangerep

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I'm severely pressed for time right now.

The short (probably inadequate) answer is that it's much easier to see in
Fock representation. From the Heisenberg algebra (expressed in terms of
the usual annihilation and creation operators) one can look for
eigenstates of the annihilation operator, ie: $a |v\rangle = v |v\rangle$, and it then takes only a few lines to show that such
states have the required minimum uncertainty product.

With a little more work, one can show that such states can be
expressed as

$$|v\rangle = e^{va^\dagger - v^* a} |0> ~~(1)$$

See, eg, Mandel & Wolf, "Optical Coherence & Quantum Optics" ch11,
for more details.

Enlarging the basic Heisenberg algebra to include the Hamiltonian (or
in this case the number operator) $H \propto a^\dagger a$),
we get the "oscillator algebra" and the important feature here is that
$[H,a] \propto a$ and $[H,a^\dagger] \propto a^\dagger$. This means that the action of H on a coherent state
$|v\rangle$ always yield some other coherent state
$|w\rangle$ (which follows from (1) above).

Standing back a bit, the key point of all this is that we have a
basic algebra (Heisenberg) which the Hamiltonian preserves, meaning
that the adjoint action of the Hamiltonian on this algebra (both
considered as elements of a larger enveloping algebra) yields
another element of that same basic algebra. In the present case,
this means that although coherent states are not eigenstates of
the Hamiltonian, we can say that coherent states evolve into (other)
coherent states
and we already know that all coherent states have
minimum uncertainty product.

There is a generalization of all this: given a dynamical algebra "A",
we find the largest commuting subalgebra "C" containing the
Hamiltonian, and then construct states by cyclically acting on a vacuum
state with the (exponentiated) remaining generators in A/C. Details can
be found in the review paper:

Zhang, Feng, Gilmore:
"Coherent states: Theory and some applications"
Rev Mod Phys 62:867-927, 1990.

Meanwhile, let me try to answer the OP's original question a bit better, i.e.,
It's because there are certain states constructable from the Heisenberg
algebra alone, all of which have minimum uncertainty product. We call
these "coherent states". Then, when we consider the Hamiltonian
together with the Heisenberg algebra, we find the latter is preserved
by the action of the Hamiltonian and that coherent states evolve into
other coherent states. So it's not so much the "quadratic potential"
that's at work here, but more how the total Hamiltonian preserves
the Heisenberg algebra.