The effects of static quartic anharmonicity on the quantum dynamics of a linear oscillator with time-dependent harmonic frequency: perturbative analysis and numerical calculations

Abstract

The effects of quartic anharmonicity on the quantum dynamics of a linear oscillator with time-dependent force constant (K) or harmonic frequency (ω) are studied both perturbatively and numerically by the time-dependent Fourier grid Hamiltonian method. In the absence of anharmonicity, the ground-state population decreases and the population of an accessible excited state (k = 2, 4, 6..) increases with time. However, when anharmonicity is introduced, both the ground- and excited-state populations show typical oscillations. For weak coupling, the population of an accessible excited state at a certain instant of time (short) turns out to be a parabolic function of the anharmonic coupling constant (λ), when all other parameters of the system are kept fixed. This parabolic nature of the excited-state population vs. the λ profile is independent of the specific form of the time dependence of the force constant, K_t. However, it depends upon the rate at which K_t relaxes. For small anharmonic coupling strength and short time scales, the numerical results corroborate expectations based on the first-order time-dependent perturbative analysis, using a suitably repartitioned Hamiltonian that makes H₀ time-independent. Some of the possible experimental implications of our observations are analyzed, especially in relation to intensity oscillations observed in some charge-transfer spectra in systems in which the dephasing rates are comparable with the time scale of the electron transfer.