Berry’s Phase

Nonholonomic Processes
Consider a perfectly frictionless pendulum with a slowly moving support. We claim that as long as
the motion of the support is much slower than the period of the pendulum, it will continue to swing
in the same plane along with the same amplitude (and frequency).

slowly moving support

But now consider this:

Solid Angle

We start from the North Pole, and swing the pendulum all the way through equator and along the
mentioned path, and reach at the same point again.
But now our pendulum has traversed an angle and is not in the same plane anymore. This angle is
equal to the solid angle subtended by the path along which the pendulum was carried.

𝜃 is the solid angle subtended by the path around which the the pendulum was carried.

𝜽 = 𝑨/𝑹𝟐

where

A = Area of path covered

R= Radius of the earth

A system such as this, which does not return to its original state when trans- ported around a
closed loop, is said to be nonholonomic.
Our aim for the next section is to study the quantum mechanics of nonholonomic adiabatic
processes.

The essential question is this: How does the final state differ from the initial state, if the
parameters in the Hamiltonian are carried adiabatically around some closed cycle?

Geometric Phase
A particle which starts out in the nth eigenstate of H(0) remains, under adiabatic conditions, in the
nth eigenstate of H(t), picking up only a time-dependent phase factor. (refer to Sai Charan’s notes
on adiabatic approximation).

Specifically, its wave function is:

i[θ n (t )+γ n (t )]
Ψn(t) = e Ψn(t)
where

1 5
𝜃𝑛(𝑡 ) = − 0 𝐸𝑛 (𝑡 2 )𝑑𝑡′
ℏ 6

is the dynamic phase and

5
𝜕𝜓8 (𝑡 2 )
𝛾8 (𝑡) = 𝑖 0 :𝜓8 (𝑡 2 )< > 𝜕𝑡′
6
𝜕𝑡 2

Is called the geometric phase.

Now 𝜓8 (𝑡) depends on t because there is some parameter R(t) in the Hamiltonian that is changing
with time.

Thus,

∂Ψn ∂Ψn dR
=
∂t ∂R dt
so,

R
t
∂Ψ n dR f
∂Ψ n
γ n (t) = i ∫ Ψn = i ∫ Ψn dR
0
∂R dt ' R
∂R
i

In general,
 ∂Ψn ∂Ψn dR1 ∂Ψn dR2 ∂Ψn dRN dR
= + + ...+ = (∇ R Ψ n ) i
∂t ∂R1 dt ∂R2 dt ∂RN dt dt

Finally, we have:

Rf

γ n (t) = i ∫ Ψ n ∇ R Ψ n i dR
Ri

If the Hamiltonian returns to its original state after a time T, the net geometric phase is given by:

γ n (t) = i !∫ Ψ n ∇ R Ψ n i dR

The above equation was first obtained by Michael Berry in 1984 and 𝛾8 (𝑡) is called the Berry’s
Phase. Note that 𝛾8 (𝑡) only depends on the path taken, and not on how fast the path is traversed.
That is why it is called a geometric phase.

References:
1. Jun John Sakurai, Jim Napolitano, Modern quantum mechanics (2014)

2. Introduction to quantum mechanics by David.J.Griffiths (2005)

**Note: All the equations have been written in MathType. Please let me know in case there are any
errors. Thank you!