Exponentially accurate semiclassical asymptotics of low-lying eigenvalues for \(2\times 2\) matrix Schrödinger operators (Q2573450)

The paper under review deals with the Hamiltonian \(H(\varepsilon) = -\frac{\varepsilon^4}{2}\frac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2} + h(y) \) of a simple molecular quantum system where the nucleus configuration is a single real variable \(y\) and \(h(y)\) is the electron Hamiltonian with only two levels, namely, is a \(2\times 2\) real symmetric matrix. So \(H(\varepsilon)\) is a Schrödinger operator acting on \(L^2({\mathbb R}, {\mathbb C}^2)\), involving the usual small Born-Oppenheimer parameter \(\varepsilon\) such that \(\varepsilon^4\) is the electron mass divided by the mean nuclear mass. The main result is: For the eigenvalue problem \(H(\varepsilon)\Psi(\varepsilon,y) = E(\varepsilon)\Psi(\varepsilon,y)\) with \(\Psi \in L^2({\mathbb R}, {\mathbb C}^2)\), by using optimal truncation of a perturbation expansion for small \(\varepsilon\), one can construct, for a fixed nonnegative integer \(\alpha\), exponentially accurate quasimodes \(E_{\varepsilon}\) and \(\Psi_{\varepsilon}\) such that \(\| \Psi_{\varepsilon}\| =O(1),\, E_{\varepsilon} =(\alpha +\frac12)\varepsilon^2 +O(\varepsilon^4)\), and \(\| (H(\varepsilon)-E_{\varepsilon})\Psi_{\varepsilon}\| < \Lambda \exp(-\Gamma/\varepsilon^2)\), with some positive constants \(\Lambda\) and \(\Gamma\). This quasimode is associated with the \(\alpha\)-th vibrational energy near a local minimum of an electron level which is not at a level crossing. The authors employ some expansion techniques which differ from the multiple scales techniques used in \textit{G. A. Hagedorn} [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Ser. A 47, 1--16 (1987; Zbl 0621.41012)]. They expect to generalize the result to the more general situation where the electron Hamiltonian \(h(\cdot)\) is an analytic selfadjoint operator valued function on a space of infinite dimension.