Exact propagator for motion confined to a sector
- 21 February 1983
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Journal of Physics A: General Physics
- Vol. 16 (3) , 513-519
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0305-4470/16/3/011
Abstract
In certain situations the Feynman path integral 'collapses' into a countable sum over classical paths. This effect is sought in motion confined to a sector (in polar coordinates: r>or=0, 0<or= phi <or= alpha ). The exact space-time propagator is derived as a sum over a general nonclassical image set, with resulting structure radically dependent on number-theoretic properties of pi / alpha . It is shown that collapse occurs if and only if this number is an integer.Keywords
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