Breakdown of the coherent state path integral: Two simple examples

Justin H. Wilson, Victor Galitski

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30 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We show how the time-continuous coherent state path integral breaks down for both the single-site Bose-Hubbard model and the spin-path integral. Specifically, when the Hamiltonian is quadratic in a generator of the algebra used to construct coherent states, the path integral fails to produce correct results following from an operator approach. As suggested by previous authors, we note that the problems do not arise in the time-discretized version of the path integral.
Original languageEnglish
Article number110401
Number of pages4
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume106
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Mar 2011
Externally publishedYes

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