Elementary exponential error estimates for the adiabatic approximation. (Q5961163)

Let \(H(t)\) be a family of self-adjoint operators that depends analytically on the time variable and \(E(t)\) be a simple eigenvalue of \(H(t)\) that remains a distance \(d(t)>d_0>0\) away from the rest of the spectrum of \(H(t)\). The authors present an elementary proof that the quantum adiabatic approximation is correct up to exponentially small errors. The proof uses optimal truncation of a straightforward asymptotic expansion. The terms of the expansion are estimated with standard Cauchy estimates.