The semiclassical resonance spectrum of hydrogen in a constant magnetic field

Abstract

We present the first purely semiclassical calculation of the resonance spectrum in the diamagnetic Kepler problem (DKP), a hydrogen atom in a constant magnetic field with . The classical system is unbound and completely chaotic for a scaled energy larger than a critical value . The quantum mechanical resonances can in semiclassical approximation be expressed as the zeros of the semiclassical zeta function, a product over all the periodic orbits of the underlying classical dynamics. Intermittency originating from the asymptotically separable limit of the potential at large electron - nucleus distance causes divergences in the periodic orbit formula. Using a regularization technique introduced in (Tanner G and Wintgen D 1995 Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 2928) together with a modified cycle expansion, we calculate semiclassical resonances, both position and width, which are in good agreement with quantum mechanical results obtained by the method of complex rotation. The method also provides good estimates for the bound state spectrum obtained here from the classical dynamics of a scattering system. A quasi-Einstein - Brillouin - Keller (QEBK) quantization is derived that allows for a description of the spectrum in terms of approximate quantum numbers and yields the correct asymptotic behaviour of the Rydberg-like series converging towards the different Landau thresholds.