Propagator for the general time-dependent harmonic oscillator with application to an ion trap

Abstract

We present the simplest possible formula for the propagator of the general time-dependent quadratic Hamiltonian, including linear terms. The method is based on the use of a linear time-dependent invariant and requires only the solution of a linear homogeneous second-order ordinary differential equation corresponding to the classical quadratic Hamiltonian. We give an example for the case of the Paul trap.