Fast state and trap rotation of a particle in an anisotropic potential

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a quantum or classical particle in a two-dimensional rotating anisotropic harmonic potential. By a sequence of symplectic transformations for constant rotation velocity we find uncoupled normal generalized coordinates and conjugate momenta in which the Hamiltonian takes the form of two independent harmonic oscillators. The decomposition into normal-mode dynamics enables us to design fast trap-rotation processes to produce a rotated version of an arbitrary initial state, when the two normal frequencies are commensurate.