No label defined (Q4028086)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0747.00041.] The adiabatic and Born-Oppenheimer approximations are both methods for obtaining approximate solutions of the Schrödinger equation. Involved in these approximation is the rate of change in time of the Hamiltonian. The adiabatic approximation applies when the Hamiltonian changes very slowly with time. In such instances, solutions to the time dependent equation can be approximated by means of stationary energy eigenfunctions of the instantaneous Hamiltonian. One then relies on the adiabatic theorem which says that a system initially in a state described by a particular eigenfunction will be found at a later time in a state described by the corresponding eigenfunction. The Born-Oppenheimer approximation which is closely related to the adiabatic approximation arises in problems where there are two different time scales. The typical example is the molecule. Systems that lend themselves to this approximation scheme therefore possess fast and slow variables. For the molecule these are respectively the electronic and nuclear variables. In the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, instead of treating the slow variables as adiabatically evolving in a prescribed way, one quantizes these after the dynamics of the fast variables has been resolved. These methods are very standard and usually covered in undergraduate quantum mechanics courses [\textit{L. Schiff}, Quantum mechanics, New York (1955)]. It was therefore a surprise when a few years ago, \textit{M. V. Berry} [Proc. R. Soc. Lond., Ser. A 392, 45-57 (1984), see also \textit{B. Simon}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 2167 (1983)] made new observations which amended the textbook treatment of these topics. In particular, it is now appreciated that these adiabatic descriptions often require the presence of external gauge potentials which we shall refer to as Berry connections. These connections will be the subject of this course. We shall first review Berry's analysis in the context of both the adiabatic and the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. We shall then discuss a few standard quantum-mechanical examples and also briefly indicate how Berry connections manifest themselves in quantum field theory through the anomaly phenomenon. Subsequently, we will focus on the symmetry properties of the Berry connections and explain how the theory of invariant Yang-Mills potentials can advantageously be used to compute these connections. We will conclude by discussing in this light another example, namely the so-called generalized harmonic oscillator.