|
Canonical Quantization
In physics, canonical quantization is a procedure for quantizing a classical theory, while attempting to preserve the formal structure, such as symmetries, of the classical theory, to the greatest extent possible. Historically, this was not quite Werner Heisenberg's route to obtaining quantum mechanics, but Paul Dirac introduced it in his 1926 doctoral thesis, the "method of classical analogy" for quantization, and detailed it in his classic text. The word ''canonical'' arises from the Hamiltonian approach to classical mechanics, in which a system's dynamics is generated via canonical Poisson brackets, a structure which is ''only partially preserved'' in canonical quantization. This method was further used in the context of quantum field theory by Paul Dirac, in his construction of quantum electrodynamics. In the field theory context, it is also called the second quantization of fields, in contrast to the semi-classical first quantization of single particles. History W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classical Mechanics
Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of macroscopic objects, from projectiles to parts of machinery, and astronomical objects, such as spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. For objects governed by classical mechanics, if the present state is known, it is possible to predict how it will move in the future (determinism), and how it has moved in the past (reversibility). The earliest development of classical mechanics is often referred to as Newtonian mechanics. It consists of the physical concepts based on foundational works of Sir Isaac Newton, and the mathematical methods invented by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Leonhard Euler, and other contemporaries, in the 17th century to describe the motion of bodies under the influence of a system of forces. Later, more abstract methods were developed, leading to the reformulations of classical mechanics known as Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics. These advance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncertainty Principle
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, ''x'', and momentum, ''p'', can be predicted from initial conditions. Such variable pairs are known as complementary variables or canonically conjugate variables; and, depending on interpretation, the uncertainty principle limits to what extent such conjugate properties maintain their approximate meaning, as the mathematical framework of quantum physics does not support the notion of simultaneously well-defined conjugate properties expressed by a single value. The uncertainty principle implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are specified. Introduced first in 1927 by the German physicist Werner H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canonical Commutation Relation
In quantum mechanics, the canonical commutation relation is the fundamental relation between canonical conjugate quantities (quantities which are related by definition such that one is the Fourier transform of another). For example, hat x,\hat p_x= i\hbar \mathbb between the position operator and momentum operator in the direction of a point particle in one dimension, where is the commutator of and , is the imaginary unit, and is the reduced Planck's constant , and \mathbb is the unit operator. In general, position and momentum are vectors of operators and their commutation relation between different components of position and momentum can be expressed as hat r_i,\hat p_j= i\hbar \delta_ \mathbb. where \delta_ is the Kronecker delta. This relation is attributed to Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Pascual Jordan (1925), who called it a "quantum condition" serving as a postulate of the theory; it was noted by E. Kennard (1927) to imply the Heisenberg uncertainty princip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Position And Momentum Space
In physics and geometry, there are two closely related vector spaces, usually three-dimensional but in general of any finite dimension. Position space (also real space or coordinate space) is the set of all ''position vectors'' r in space, and has dimensions of length; a position vector defines a point in space. (If the position vector of a point particle varies with time, it will trace out a path, the trajectory of a particle.) Momentum space is the set of all ''momentum vectors'' p a physical system can have; the momentum vector of a particle corresponds to its motion, with units of asslength]imesup>−1. Mathematically, the duality between position and momentum is an example of ''Pontryagin duality''. In particular, if a function is given in position space, ''f''(r), then its Fourier transform obtains the function in momentum space, ''φ''(p). Conversely, the inverse Fourier transform of a momentum space function is a position space function. These quantities and ideas transc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wavefunction
A wave function in quantum physics is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The wave function is a complex-valued probability amplitude, and the probabilities for the possible results of measurements made on the system can be derived from it. The most common symbols for a wave function are the Greek letters and (lower-case and capital psi, respectively). The wave function is a function of the degrees of freedom corresponding to some maximal set of commuting observables. Once such a representation is chosen, the wave function can be derived from the quantum state. For a given system, the choice of which commuting degrees of freedom to use is not unique, and correspondingly the domain of the wave function is also not unique. For instance, it may be taken to be a function of all the position coordinates of the particles over position space, or the momenta of all the particles over momentum space; the two are related by a Fourie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eigenstate
In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that provides a probability distribution for the outcomes of each possible measurement on a system. Knowledge of the quantum state together with the rules for the system's evolution in time exhausts all that can be predicted about the system's behavior. A mixture of quantum states is again a quantum state. Quantum states that cannot be written as a mixture of other states are called pure quantum states, while all other states are called mixed quantum states. A pure quantum state can be represented by a ray in a Hilbert space over the complex numbers, while mixed states are represented by density matrices, which are positive semidefinite operators that act on Hilbert spaces. Pure states are also known as state vectors or wave functions, the latter term applying particularly when they are represented as functions of position or momentum. For example, when dealing with the energy spectrum of the electron in a hydrogen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamiltonian (quantum Mechanics)
Hamiltonian may refer to: * Hamiltonian mechanics, a function that represents the total energy of a system * Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics), an operator corresponding to the total energy of that system ** Dyall Hamiltonian, a modified Hamiltonian with two-electron nature ** Molecular Hamiltonian, the Hamiltonian operator representing the energy of the electrons and nuclei in a molecule * Hamiltonian (control theory), a function used to solve a problem of optimal control for a dynamical system * Hamiltonian path, a path in a graph that visits each vertex exactly once * Hamiltonian group, a non-abelian group the subgroups of which are all normal * Hamiltonian economic program The Hamiltonian economic program was the set of measures that were proposed by American Founding Father and first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in four notable reports and implemented by the US Congress during George Washington's ..., the economic policies advocated by Alexander Hamilton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed. The unit of measurement for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule (J). Common forms of energy include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object (for instance due to its position in a field), the elastic energy stored in a solid object, chemical energy associated with chemical reactions, the radiant energy carried by electromagnetic radiation, and the internal energy contained within a thermodynamic system. All living organisms constantly take in and release energy. Due to mass–energy equivalence, any object th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum States
In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that provides a probability distribution for the outcomes of each possible measurement on a system. Knowledge of the quantum state together with the rules for the system's evolution in time exhausts all that can be predicted about the system's behavior. A mixture of quantum states is again a quantum state. Quantum states that cannot be written as a mixture of other states are called pure quantum states, while all other states are called mixed quantum states. A pure quantum state can be represented by a ray in a Hilbert space over the complex numbers, while mixed states are represented by density matrices, which are positive semidefinite operators that act on Hilbert spaces. Pure states are also known as state vectors or wave functions, the latter term applying particularly when they are represented as functions of position or momentum. For example, when dealing with the energy spectrum of the electron in a hydrog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilbert Space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics, typically as function spaces. Formally, a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that defines a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space. The earliest Hilbert spaces were studied from this point of view in the first decade of the 20th century by David Hilbert, Erhard Schmidt, and Frigyes Riesz. They are indispensable tools in the theories of partial differential equations, quantum mechanics, Fourier analysis (which includes applications to signal processing and heat transfer), and ergodic theory (which forms the mathematical underpinning of thermodynamics). John von Neumann coined the term ''Hilbert space'' for the abstract concept that u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
