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Quantum Device Fabrication Process Engineering

Effective classical potential for quantum statistical averages

arXiv
Authors: Vijay Ganesh Sadhasivam, Stuart C. Althorpe, Venkat Kapil

Year

2026

Paper ID

695

Status

Preprint

Abstract Read

~2 min

Abstract Words

106

Citations

N/A

Abstract

We present an effective potential that allows quantum thermal expectation values of a position-dependent observable to be estimated as a classical ensemble average of the corresponding function. We follow the approach of Feynman and Hibbs, but perform the mean-field treatment of quantum fluctuations about the path starting point rather than the path centroid. Furthermore, rather than performing a full variational optimization of the potential, we explore approximate functional forms that yield a numerical robustness. The resulting closed-form potential is exact in the classical and harmonic limits; benchmarks against exact position distributions for one-dimensional quartic, Morse, and double-well potentials, show good agreement for potentials with harmonic support.

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  • We present an effective potential that allows quantum thermal expectation values of a position-dependent observable to be estimated as a classical ensemble average of the...

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References & Citation Signals

[1] DOI https://doi.org/arXiv:2602.13006 [2] arXiv https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13006 [3] Publisher https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.13006

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