The Feynman effective classical potential in the Schr\"odinger formulation

Efforts to give an improved mathematical meaning to Feynman's path integral formulation of quantum mechanics started soon after its introduction and continue to this day. In the present paper, one common thread of development is followed over many years, with contributions made by various authors. The present version of this line of development involves a continuous-time regularization for a general phase space path integral and provides, in the author's opinion at least, per...

A correspondence of classical to quantum physics studied by Schr\"{o}\-dinger and Ehrenfest applies without the necessity of technical conjecture that classical observables are associated with Hermitian Hilbert space operators. This correspondence provides appropriate nonrelativistic classical interpretations to realizations of relativistic quantum physics that are incompatible with the canonical formalism. Using this correspondence, Newtonian mechanics for a $1/r$ potential ...

These lectures illustrate the key ideas of modern renormalization theory and effective field theories in the context of simple nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and the Schr\"odinger equation. They also discuss problems in QED, QCD and nuclear physics for which rigorous potential models can be derived using renormalization techniques. They end with an analysis of nucleon-nucleon scattering based effective theory.

We show that the Schroedinger equation of quantum physics can be solved using the classical Hamilton-Jacobi action dynamics, extending a key result of Feynman applicable only to quadratic Lagrangians. This is made possible by two developments. The first is incorporating geometric constraints directly in the classical least action problem, in effect replacing in part the probabilistic setting by the non-uniqueness of solutions of the constrained problem. For instance, in the d...

While it is well-known that quantum mechanics can be reformulated in terms of a path integral representation, it will be shown that such a formulation is also possible in the case of classical mechanics. From Koopman-von Neumann theory, which recasts classical mechanics in terms of a Hilbert space wherein the Liouville operator acts as the generator of motion, we derive a path integral representation of the classical propagator and suggest an efficient numerical implementatio...

The partition function of a quantum statistical system in flat space can always be written as an integral over a classical Boltzmann factor $\exp[ -\beta V^{\rm eff cl({\bf x}_0)]$, where $V^{\rm eff cl({\bf x}_0)$ is the so-called effective classical potential containing the effects of all quantum fluctuations. The variable of integration is the temporal path average ${\bf x_0\equiv \beta ^{-1}\int_0^ \beta d\tau {\bf x}(\tau)$. We show how to generalize this concept to path...

We present in this continuation paper a new axiomatic derivation of the Schr\"odinger equation from three basic postulates. This new derivation sheds some light on the thermodynamic character of the quantum formalism. We also show the formal connection between this derivation and the one previously done by other means. Some considerations about metaestability are also drawn. We return to an example previously developed to show how the connection between both derivations works...

We present an approach to solving the evolution of a classical $N$-particle ensemble based on the path integral approach to classical mechanics. This formulation provides a perturbative solution to the Liouville equation in terms of a propagator which can be expanded in a Dyson series. We show that this perturbative expansion exactly corresponds to an iterative solution of the BBGKY-hierarchy in orders of the interaction potential. Using the path integral formulation, we perf...

We study quantum particles in interaction with a force-carrying field, in the quasi-classical limit. This limit is characterized by the field having a very large number of excitations (it is therefore macroscopic), while the particles retain their quantum nature. We prove that the interacting microscopic dynamics converges, in the quasi-classical limit, to an effective dynamics where the field acts as a classical environment that drives the quantum particles.

In this lecture a short introduction is given into the theory of the Feynman path integral in quantum mechanics. The general formulation in Riemann spaces will be given based on the Weyl- ordering prescription, respectively product ordering prescription, in the quantum Hamiltonian. Also, the theory of space-time transformations and separation of variables will be outlined. As elementary examples I discuss the usual harmonic oscillator, the radial harmonic oscillator, and the ...