Schroedinger Correspondence Applied to Crystals

Abstract

In 1926, E. Schroedinger published a paper solving his new time dependent wave equation for a displaced ground state in a harmonic oscillator (now called a coherent state). He showed that the parameters describing the mean position and mean momentum of the wave packet obey the equations of motion of the classical oscillator while retaining its width. This was a qualitatively new kind of correspondence principle, differing from those leading up to quantum mechanics. Schroedinger surely knew that this correspondence would extend to an N-dimensional harmonic oscillator. This Schroedinger Correspondence Principle is an extremely intuitive and powerful way to approach many aspects of harmonic solids including anharmonic corrections.