Semiclassical analysis of the Wigner 12j symbol with one small angular momentum
We derive an asymptotic formula for the Wigner 12j symbol, in the limit of one small and 11 large angular momenta. There are two kinds of asymptotic formulas for the 12j symbol with one small angular momentum. We present the first kind of formula in this paper. Our derivation relies on the techniques developed in the semiclassical analysis of the Wigner 9j symbol [L. Yu and R. G. Littlejohn, Phys. Rev. A 83, 052114 (2011)], where we used a gauge-invariant form of the multicomponent WKB wave functions to derive asymptotic formulas for the 9j symbol with small and large angular momenta. When applying the same technique to the 12j symbol in this paper, we find that the spinor is diagonalized in the direction of an intermediate angular momentum. In addition, we find that the geometry of the derived asymptotic formula for the 12j symbol is expressed in terms of the vector diagram for a 9j symbol. This illustrates a general geometric connection between asymptotic limits of the various 3nj symbols. This work contributes an asymptotic formula for the 12j symbol to the quantum theory of angular momentum, and serves as a basis for finding asymptotic formulas for the Wigner 15j symbol with two small angular momenta.