Canonical quantization of the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator with a higher-derivative perturbation: a covariant phase space approach
Source: Originally published on arXiv quant-ph on August 4, 2026.
arXiv:2608.00108v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In this paper, we apply the covariant phase space formalism to the perturbative canonical quantization of the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator, with the acceleration-squared term treated as a perturbation. We quantize this model by constructing the symplectic form on the low-energy solution space. We then compute the energy spectrum and the unequal-time commutator in a perturbative way, and obtain the results that agree with the expansion of the exact low-energy theory. The perturbation method bypasses the standard Ostrogradsky construction and naturally decouples the Ostrogradsky ghost. This work extends our previous perturbative quantization scheme to genuine higher-derivative theories....
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