The quartic anharmonic oscillator and its associated nonconstant magnetic field

Abstract

Quantum mechanical anharmonic oscillators and Hamiltonians for particles in external magnetic fields are related to representations of nilpotent groups. Using this connection the eigenfunctions of the quartic anharmonic oscillator with potential Vα(x)=(α+(x2/2))2 can be used to determine the eigenfunctions of a charged particle in a nonconstant magnetic field, of the form Bz=β2+β3x. The quartic anharmonic oscillator eigenvalues for low-lying states are obtained numerically and a function which interpolates between α≪0 (a double harmonic oscillator) and α≫0 (a harmonic oscillator) is shown to give a good fit to the numerical data. Approximate expressions for the quartic anharmonic oscillator eigenfunctions are then used to get the eigenfunctions for the magnetic field Hamiltonian.