High order WKB prediction of the energy splitting in the symmetric double well potential

The accuracy of the WKB approximation when predicting the energy splitting of bound states in a double well potential is the main subject of this paper. The splitting of almost degenerate energy levels below the top of the barrier results from the tunneling and is thus supposed to be exponentially small. By using the standard WKB quantization we deduce an analytical formula for the energy splitting, which is the usual Landau formula with additional quantum corrections. We also examine the accuracy of our and Landau formula numerically for the case of the symmetric double well quartic potential.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, PTP LaTeX style, to be published in the proceedings of the conference/summer school 'Let's Face Chaos through Nonlinear Dynamics', Maribor, Slovenia, June/July 1999, eds. M. Robnik et al., Prog. Theor. Phys. Suppl. (Kyoto) 139 (2000

WKB expansion for the angular momentum and the Kepler problem: from the torus quantization to the exact one

We calculate the WKB series for the angular momentum and the non--relativistic 3-dim Kepler problem. This is the first semiclassical treatment of the angular momentum for terms beyond the leading WKB approximation. We explain why the torus quantization (the leading WKB term) of the full problem is exact, even if the individual torus quantization of the angular momentum and of the radial Kepler problem separately is not exact. PACS numbers: 03.65.-w, 03.65.Ge, 03.65.SqComment: 16 pages plain Latex file, no figures. submitted to J. Phys.