Underdamped harmonic oscillator driven by a train of short pulses: Analytical analysis

Abstract

A theoretical model of an underdamped harmonic oscillator (UHO) driven by periodic short pulses may find plenty of applications in classical, semiclassical, and quantum physics. We present here two different forms of analytical solutions: {\it time-periodic solutions} and {\it harmonic solutions} for one-dimensional classical UHO driven by three different trains of short pulses. They are a Dirac comb, a train of square pulses, and a train of Gaussian pulses with the same pulse-to-pulse time interval $T$ and pulse width $2\tau$. Two solutions for square and Gaussian pulses approach to that of the Dirac comb when the pulse width $2\tau \rightarrow 0$ as expected. In particular, the harmonic solutions for Dirac comb and Gaussian pulses could be expressed approximately with harmonic terms of the repetition frequency $\omega_{\rm R} = 2\pi/T$ up to the second order. The presented analytical solutions would provide a practical way to determine experimentally the system parameters such as the underdamped oscillation frequency $\omega = \sqrt{\omega_0^2-\gamma^2}$, the natural frequency $\omega_0$, and the damping rate $\gamma$, by nonlinear curve fitting procedures for different driving force parameters of $T$ and $2\tau$.