Algebraic structure of the Feynman propagator and a new correspondence for canonical transformations

Abstract

We investigate the algebraic structure of the Feynman propagator with a general time-dependent quadratic Hamiltonian system. Using the Lie-algebraic technique we obtain a normal-ordered form of the time-evolution operator, and then the propagator is easily derived by a simple ``Integration Within Ordered Product" (IWOP) technique.It is found that this propagator contains a classical generating function which demonstrates a new correspondence between classical and quantum mechanics.