Quadratic Quantum Hamiltonians revisited

Abstract

Time dependent quadratic Hamiltonians are well known as well in classical mechanics as in quantum mechanics. In particular for them the correspondence between classical and quantum mechanics is exact. But explicit formulas are non trivial (like the Mehler formula). Moreover, a good knowlege of quadratic Hamiltonians is very useful in the study of more general quantum Hamiltonians and associated Schrödinger equations in the semiclassical regime. Our goal here is to give our own presentation of this important subject. We put emphasis on computations with Gaussian coherent states. Our main motivation to do that is application concerning revivals and Loschmidt echo.