Efficient computation of the Zassenhaus formula (Q483802)

The Zassenhaus formula, cited for the first time by Magnus says that in the free lie algebra \(\mathcal{L}(X,Y)\) generated by \(X\) and \(Y\), the element \(e^{X+Y}\) can be uniquely decomposed as \[ e^{X+Y}= e^Xe^Y\prod_{n=2}^{\infty}e^{C_n(X,Y)}= e^{X+Y}=e^Xe^Ye^{C_2(X,Y)} \cdots e^{C_n(X,Y)} \cdots, \] where \(C_n(X,Y) \in \mathcal{L}(X,Y)\) is a homogeneous Lie polynomial in \(X\) and \(Y\). This is a consequence of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff Theorem and constitutes a standard tool in several fields such as statistical mechanics, main-body theories, quantum optics, path integrals, or \(q\)-analysis in quantum groups. In this paper, the authors present a new recursive procedure to get the expression of the Zassenhaus exponents \(C_n\) directly in terms of independent commutators in an efficient way, easy to implement in a computer algebra system. They also find sharper bounds for the terms of the Zassenhaus formula in Banach algebras, showing that it converges in considerably larger domains than previous results.