Wave function for harmonically confined electrons in time-dependent electric and magnetostatic fields

Perspectives on determinism in quantum mechanics: Born, Bohm, and the "Quantal Newtonian" laws

Quantum mechanics has a deterministic Schrödinger equation for the wave function. The Göttingen-Copenhagen statistical interpretation is based on the Born Rule that interprets the wave function as a "probability amplitude." A precept of this interpretation is the lack of determinism in quantum mechanics. The Bohm interpretation is that the wave function is a source of a field experienced by the electrons, thereby attributing determinism to quantum theory. In this paper, we present a new perspective on such determinism. The ideas are based on the equations of motion or "Quantal Newtonian" Laws obeyed by each electron. These Laws, derived from the temporal and stationary-state Schrödinger equation, are interpreted in terms of "classical" fields whose sources are quantal expectations of Hermitian operators taken with respect to the wave function. According to the Second Law, each electron experiences an external field-the quantal Coulomb-Lorentz law. It also experiences an internal field representative of properties of the system: correlations due to Coulomb repulsion and Pauli principle; the density; kinetic effects; and an internal magnetic field component. There is a response field. The First Law states that the sum of the external and internal fields experienced by each electron vanishes. These fields are akin to those of classical physics: They pervade all space; their structure is descriptive of the quantum system; the energy of the system is stored in these fields. It is in the classical behavior of these fields, which arise from quantal sources that one may then speak of determinism in quantum mechanics.

The generalized harmonic potential theorem in the presence of a time-varying magnetic field

We investigate the evolution of the many-body wave function of a quantum system with time-varying effective mass, confined by a harmonic potential with time-varying frequency in the presence of a uniform time-varying magnetic field, and perturbed by a time-dependent uniform electric field. It is found that the wave function is comprised of a phase factor times the solution to the unperturbed time-dependent Schrödinger equation with the latter being translated by a time-dependent value that satisfies the classical driven equation of motion. In other words, we generalize the harmonic potential theorem to the case when the effective mass, harmonic potential, and the external uniform magnetic field with arbitrary orientation are all time-varying. The results reduce to various special cases obtained in the literature, particulary to that of the harmonic potential theorem wave function when the effective mass and frequency are both static and the external magnetic field is absent.