Quantum geometry at arbitrary genus - I: Anharmonic potentials

Abstract

In quantum mechanics of genus-1 potentials, perturbation theory around the topologically trivial saddle and non-perturbative instanton saddle are constructively related via the P/NP relation. Whether such a relation persists for higher-genus potentials has remained an open problem. In this work, we resolve it using tools from complex algebraic geometry combined with exact WKB. The classical energy conservation relation $p^2 = 2(E-V(q))$ defines a genus-g Riemann surface $X$, whose periods are naturally organized by its Jacobian variety $J(X) = \mathbb{C}^{\text{g}}/Λ$ via the Abel-Jacobi map, and independently by the solution basis of the associated Picard-Fuchs equations. We show that the physically relevant, WKB-active cycles are generally related to the Picard-Fuchs basis by a linear transformation that lies in $\text{SL}(2\text{g},\mathbb{Z})$ but not in the symplectic group $\text{Sp}(2\text{g},\mathbb{Z})$ once $\text{g}\geq2$, in contrast to the genus-1 case, where the two groups coincide. This mismatch is the obstruction that has made an explicit higher-genus P/NP relation elusive. We show that it can be resolved by passing to a modified Riemann bilinear identity, built from a suitably transformed intersection matrix, which the WKB-active periods do satisfy exactly. The result is an all-orders quantum P/NP relation valid for potentials of arbitrary genus, which we derive explicitly for genus-2 (quintic and sextic) and genus-3 (septic and octic) anharmonic oscillators.

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