Langer–Cherry derivation of the multi-instanton expansion for the symmetric double well

Abstract

The multi-instanton expansion for the eigenvalues of the symmetric double well is derived using a Langer–Cherry uniform asymptotic expansion of the solution of the corresponding Schrödinger equation. The Langer–Cherry expansion is anchored to either one of the minima of the potential, and by construction has the correct asymptotic behavior at large distance, while the quantization condition amounts to imposing the even or odd parity of the wave function. This method leads to an efficient algorithm for the calculation to virtually any desired order of all the exponentially small series of the multi-instanton expansion, and with trivial modifications can also be used for nonsymmetric double wells.