Harmonic Oscillators: Types, Functions and Applications (Physics Research and Technology)

This book gathers state-of-the-art advances on harmonic oscillators including their types, functions, and applications. In Chapter 1, Neetik and Amlan have discussed the recent progresses of information theoretic tools in the context of free and confined harmonic oscillator. Confined quantum systems have provided appreciable interest in areas of physics, chemistry, biology, etc., since its inception. A particle under extreme pressure environment unfolds many fascinating, notable physical and chemical changes. The desired effect is achieved by reducing the spatial boundary from infinity to a finite region. Similarly, in the last decade, information measures were investigated extensively in diverse quantum problems, in both free and constrained situations. The most prominent amongst these are: Fisher information, Shannon entropy, Renyi entropy, Tsallis entropy, Onicescu energy and several complexities. Arguably, these are the most effective measures of uncertainty, as they do not make any reference to some specific points of a respective Hilbert space. These have been invoked to explain several physic-chemical properties of a system under investigation. Kullback Leibler divergence or relative entropy describes how a given probability distribution shifts from a reference distribution function. This characterizes a measure of discrimination between two states. In other words, it extracts the change of information in going from one state to another. In Chapter 2, Nabakumar, Subhasree, and Paulami have revisited classical-quantum correspondence in the context of linear Simple Harmonic Oscillator (SHO). According to Bohr's correspondence principle, quantum mechanically calculated results match with the classically expected results when quantum number is very high. Classical quantum correspondence may also be visualized in the limit when the action integral is much greater than Planck's constant. When de-Broglie wave length associated with a particle is much larger than system size, then quantum mechanical results also match with the classical results. In the context of dynamics, Ehrenfest equation of motion is used in quantum domain, which is analogous to classical Newton's equation of motion. SHO is one of the most important systems for several reasons. It is one of the few exactly solvable problems. Any stable molecular potential can be approximated by SHO near the equilibrium point. This builds the foundation for the understanding of complex modes of vibration in large molecules, the motion of atoms in a solid lattice, the theory of heat capacity, vibration motion of nuclei in molecule etc. The authors have revisited the common solution techniques and important properties of both classical and quantum linear SHO. Then they focused on probability distribution, quantum mechanical tunneling, classical and quantum dynamics of position, momentum and their actuations, viral theorems, etc. and also analyzed how quantum mechanical results finally tend to classical results in the high quantum number limit. In Chapter 3, Neeraj has discussed the nature of atomic motions, sometimes referred to as lattice vibrations. The lattice dynamics deals with the vibrations of the atoms inside the crystals. In order to write the dynamic equations of the motion of crystal atoms, we need to describe an inter-atomic interaction. Therefore, it is natural to start the study of the lattice dynamics with the case of small harmonic vibrations. The dynamics of one-dimensional and two-dimensional vibrations of monatomic and diatomic crystals can be understood by using the simple model forces based on harmonic approximation. This harmonic approximation is related to a simple ball-spring model. According to this model, each atom is coupled with the neighboring atoms by spring constants. The collective motion of atoms leads to a distinct traveling wave over the whole crystal, leading to the collective motion, so-called phonon. The simple ball-s