Baker-Campbell-Hausdor formula(e)

Mathprof

2013-03-21 16:04:41
Given a linear operator A, we dene:
exp A :=

k=0
1
k!
A
k
. (1)
It follows that

e
A
= Ae
A
= e
A
A. (2)
Consider another linear operator B. Let B() = e
A
Be
A
. Then one can
prove the following series representation for B():
B() =

m=0

m
m!
B
m
, (3)
where B
m
= [A, B]
m
:= [A, [A, B]
m1
] and B
0
:= B. A very important special
case of eq. (??) is known as the Baker-Campbell-Hausdor (BCH) formula.
Namely, for = 1 we get:
e
A
Be
A
=

m=0
1
m!
B
m
. (4)
Alternatively, this expression may be rewritten as
[B, e
A
] = e
A

[A, B] +
1
2
[A, [A, B]] +

, (5)
or
[e
A
, B] =

[A, B] +
1
2
[A, [A, B]] +

e
A
. (6)

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1
There is a descendent of the BCH formula, which often is also referred to as
BCH formula. It provides us with the multiplication law for two exponentials
of linear operators: Suppose [A, [A, B]] = [B, [B, A]] = 0. Then,
e
A
e
B
= e
A+B
e
1
2
[A,B]
. (7)
Thus, if we want to commute two exponentials, we get an extra factor
e
A
e
B
= e
B
e
A
e
[A,B]
. (8)
2