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7 votes
1 answer
676 views

What happens to branching in the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics in the limit when Planck's constant goes to 0?

We learn from quantum mechanics courses that one recovers classical mechanics in the limit when Planck's constant goes to zero. This can be seen in the path integral formulation. This is why ...
Guillaume Laporte's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
273 views

How Feynman's path integral lead to least action principle? Math proof needed [duplicate]

I have read about Feynman path integral which leads to classical limit. It said that because $\hbar \rightarrow 0$ in classical view. The function of path integral $\int e^{\frac{1}{\hbar}f(x)} dx$ ...
QuantumNerd's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
379 views

In what sense a path integral can be approximated by the classical contribution $\exp{[\frac{\mathrm{i}}{\hbar}S_{\text{cl}}}]$?

People often say that the amplitude $K(b,a)$ to go from $a$ to $b$ can be approximated by $$K(b,a) \sim \exp{\left[\frac{\mathrm{i}}{\hbar}S_{\text{cl}}(b,a)\right]},\tag{1}$$ where $S_{\text{cl}}(b,a)...
Yang Xiaosheng's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
150 views

Why the action is taking phase in considering Huygens principle in matter waves?

From Dirac's remarks $$\langle x_2,t_2|x_1,t_1\rangle=\exp\left[ \frac{i\int_{t_1}^{t_2}\mathrm dt\, L_{\text{classical}}{\left(\dot{x},x\right)}}{\hbar}\right].$$ How can I conclude from Huygens ...
baponkar's user avatar
  • 519
2 votes
1 answer
155 views

How I can see that everyday life systems behave classical (from QFT path integrals)?

If I would try to treat macroscopic systems consisting of a super-large number of particles (also when environment is included), I have to compute $2N$-point correlation functions with very large ...
kryomaxim's user avatar
  • 3,518
1 vote
1 answer
403 views

Classical Limit of Quantum Mechanics recovered from the Path Integral Formalism

From Zee's Quantum Theory in a Nutshell he explains how the classical limit of quantum mechanics can be recovered from the path integral formalism. It can be shown that the path integral formalism is:...
Trajan's user avatar
  • 895
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why does the classical path give the dominant contribution in the path integral?

Why is it that the classical path gives the dominant contribution in the quantum mechanical path integral? How do we understand this?
SRS's user avatar
  • 27.2k
4 votes
1 answer
801 views

Classical mechanics from Quantum mechanics

I'm looking at a way to prove that one recovers, under ad hoc assumptions, classical mechanics from quantum theory. Usually, we can find in textbooks that the propagator $$K(x,x_0;t)=\langle x|e^{-i ...
Adam's user avatar
  • 12.1k
13 votes
2 answers
5k views

Classical Limit of the Feynman Path Integral

I understand that in the limit that $\hbar$ goes to zero, the Feynman path integral is dominated by the classical path, and then using the stationary phase approximation we can derive an approximation ...
dab's user avatar
  • 951