Paper detail

Structure of high-order quantum adiabatic approximation

The paper studies the structure of high-order adiabatic approximation of a wave function for slowly changing Hamiltonians. A constructive technique for explicit separation of fast and slow components of the wave function is developed. The fast components are determined by dynamic phases, while the slow components are given by asymptotic series evaluated by means of an explicit recurrent procedure. It is shown that the slow components represent quasiadiabatic states, which play conceptually the same role as energy levels in stationary systems or Floquet states in time-periodic systems. As an application, we derive high-order asymptotic expressions for quasienergies of periodic Hamiltonians. As examples, a two-state (spin-1/2) system in periodically changing magnetic filed, and a particle in moving square potential well are studied.