A study of the semiclassical initial value representation at short times

The short time dynamics of the semiclassical initial value separation are studied analytically for a one dimensional system. We find that at short times the approximation introduces spurious errors that depend on h and result from the anharmonic part of the potential. This is in contrast to classical mechanics which gives the first three initial time derivatives of a coordinate dependent operator exactly. Consideration of a model system shows, though, that the error introduced is not very large and that for times which are longer than a typical period of classical motion, semiclassical initial value representation propagation is superior to classical time propagation. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.