A global solution to the Schrödinger equation: From Henstock to Feynman
- Department of Mathematics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 (United States)
One of the key elements of Feynman’s formulation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics is a so-called Feynman path integral. It plays an important role in the theory, but it appears as a postulate based on intuition, rather than a well-defined object. All previous attempts to supply Feynman’s theory with rigorous mathematics underpinning, based on the physical requirements, have not been satisfactory. The difficulty comes from the need to define a measure on the infinite dimensional space of paths and to create an integral that would possess all of the properties requested by Feynman. In the present paper, we consider a new approach to defining the Feynman path integral, based on the theory developed by Muldowney [A Modern Theory of Random Variable: With Applications in Stochastic Calcolus, Financial Mathematics, and Feynman Integration (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, 2012)]. Muldowney uses the Henstock integration technique and deals with non-absolute integrability of the Fresnel integrals, in order to obtain a representation of the Feynman path integral as a functional. This approach offers a mathematically rigorous definition supporting Feynman’s intuitive derivations. But in his work, Muldowney gives only local in space-time solutions. A physical solution to the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation must be global, and it must be given in the form of a unitary one-parameter group in L{sup 2}(ℝ{sup n}). The purpose of this paper is to show that a system of one-dimensional local Muldowney’s solutions may be extended to yield a global solution. Moreover, the global extension can be represented by a unitary one-parameter group acting in L{sup 2}(ℝ{sup n})
- OSTI ID:
- 22479596
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Mathematical Physics, Vol. 56, Issue 9; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0022-2488
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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