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Photon Number
In quantum mechanics, a Fock state or number state is a quantum state that is an element of a Fock space with a well-defined number of particles (or quanta). These states are named after the Soviet physicist Vladimir Fock. Fock states play an important role in the second quantization formulation of quantum mechanics. The particle representation was first treated in detail by Paul Dirac for bosons and by Pascual Jordan and Eugene Wigner for fermions. The Fock states of bosons and fermions obey useful relations with respect to the Fock space creation and annihilation operators. Definition One specifies a multiparticle state of N non-interacting identical particles by writing the state as a sum of tensor products of N one-particle states. Additionally, depending on the integrality of the particles' spin, the tensor products must be alternating (anti-symmetric) or symmetric products of the underlying one-particle Hilbert space. Specifically: * Fermions, having half-integer s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science. Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale. Quantum mechanics differs from classical physics in that energy, momentum, angular momentum, and other quantities of a bound system are restricted to discrete values ( quantization); objects have characteristics of both particles and waves (wave–particle duality); and there are limits to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symmetric Tensor
In mathematics, a symmetric tensor is a tensor that is invariant under a permutation of its vector arguments: :T(v_1,v_2,\ldots,v_r) = T(v_,v_,\ldots,v_) for every permutation ''σ'' of the symbols Alternatively, a symmetric tensor of order ''r'' represented in coordinates as a quantity with ''r'' indices satisfies :T_ = T_. The space of symmetric tensors of order ''r'' on a finite-dimensional vector space ''V'' is naturally isomorphic to the dual of the space of homogeneous polynomials of degree ''r'' on ''V''. Over fields of characteristic zero, the graded vector space of all symmetric tensors can be naturally identified with the symmetric algebra on ''V''. A related concept is that of the antisymmetric tensor or alternating form. Symmetric tensors occur widely in engineering, physics and mathematics. Definition Let ''V'' be a vector space and :T\in V^ a tensor of order ''k''. Then ''T'' is a symmetric tensor if :\tau_\sigma T = T\, for the braiding maps associated to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Identical Particles
In quantum mechanics, identical particles (also called indistinguishable or indiscernible particles) are particles that cannot be distinguished from one another, even in principle. Species of identical particles include, but are not limited to, elementary particles (such as electrons), composite subatomic particles (such as atomic nuclei), as well as atoms and molecules. Quasiparticles also behave in this way. Although all known indistinguishable particles only exist at the quantum scale, there is no exhaustive list of all possible sorts of particles nor a clear-cut limit of applicability, as explored in quantum statistics. There are two main categories of identical particles: bosons, which can share quantum states, and fermions, which cannot (as described by the Pauli exclusion principle). Examples of bosons are photons, gluons, phonons, helium-4 nuclei and all mesons. Examples of fermions are electrons, neutrinos, quarks, protons, neutrons, and helium-3 nuclei. The fact that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operator (physics)
In physics, an operator is a function over a space of physical states onto another space of physical states. The simplest example of the utility of operators is the study of symmetry (which makes the concept of a group useful in this context). Because of this, they are very useful tools in classical mechanics. Operators are even more important in quantum mechanics, where they form an intrinsic part of the formulation of the theory. Operators in classical mechanics In classical mechanics, the movement of a particle (or system of particles) is completely determined by the Lagrangian L(q, \dot, t) or equivalently the Hamiltonian H(q, p, t), a function of the generalized coordinates ''q'', generalized velocities \dot = \mathrm q / \mathrm t and its conjugate momenta: :p = \frac If either ''L'' or ''H'' is independent of a generalized coordinate ''q'', meaning the ''L'' and ''H'' do not change when ''q'' is changed, which in turn means the dynamics of the particle are still the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variance
In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its population mean or sample mean. Variance is a measure of dispersion, meaning it is a measure of how far a set of numbers is spread out from their average value. Variance has a central role in statistics, where some ideas that use it include descriptive statistics, statistical inference, hypothesis testing, goodness of fit, and Monte Carlo sampling. Variance is an important tool in the sciences, where statistical analysis of data is common. The variance is the square of the standard deviation, the second central moment of a distribution, and the covariance of the random variable with itself, and it is often represented by \sigma^2, s^2, \operatorname(X), V(X), or \mathbb(X). An advantage of variance as a measure of dispersion is that it is more amenable to algebraic manipulation than other measures of dispersion such as the expected absolute deviation; for e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Superposition
Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It states that, much like waves in classical physics, any two (or more) quantum states can be added together ("superposed") and the result will be another valid quantum state; and conversely, that every quantum state can be represented as a sum of two or more other distinct states. Mathematically, it refers to a property of solutions to the Schrödinger equation; since the Schrödinger equation is linear, any linear combination of solutions will also be a solution(s) . An example of a physically observable manifestation of the wave nature of quantum systems is the interference peaks from an electron beam in a double-slit experiment. The pattern is very similar to the one obtained by diffraction of classical waves. Another example is a quantum logical qubit state, as used in quantum information processing, which is a quantum superposition of the "basis states" , 0 \rangle and , 1 \rangle . Here , 0 \r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basis (linear Algebra)
In mathematics, a set of vectors in a vector space is called a basis if every element of may be written in a unique way as a finite linear combination of elements of . The coefficients of this linear combination are referred to as components or coordinates of the vector with respect to . The elements of a basis are called . Equivalently, a set is a basis if its elements are linearly independent and every element of is a linear combination of elements of . In other words, a basis is a linearly independent spanning set. A vector space can have several bases; however all the bases have the same number of elements, called the ''dimension'' of the vector space. This article deals mainly with finite-dimensional vector spaces. However, many of the principles are also valid for infinite-dimensional vector spaces. Definition A basis of a vector space over a field (such as the real numbers or the complex numbers ) is a linearly independent subset of that spans . This me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle Number Operator
In quantum mechanics, for systems where the total number of particles may not be preserved, the number operator is the observable that counts the number of particles. The number operator acts on Fock space. Let :, \Psi\rangle_\nu=, \phi_1,\phi_2,\cdots,\phi_n\rangle_\nu be a Fock state, composed of single-particle states , \phi_i\rangle drawn from a basis of the underlying Hilbert space of the Fock space. Given the corresponding creation and annihilation operators a^(\phi_i) and a(\phi_i)\, we define the number operator by :\hat \ \stackrel\ a^(\phi_i)a(\phi_i) and we have :\hat, \Psi\rangle_\nu=N_i, \Psi\rangle_\nu where N_i is the number of particles in state , \phi_i\rangle. The above equality can be proven by noting that :\begin a(\phi_i) , \phi_1,\phi_2,\cdots,\phi_,\phi_i,\phi_,\cdots,\phi_n\rangle_\nu &=& \sqrt , \phi_1,\phi_2,\cdots,\phi_,\phi_,\cdots,\phi_n\rangle_\nu \\ a^(\phi_i) , \phi_1,\phi_2,\cdots,\phi_,\phi_,\cdots,\phi_n\rangle_\nu &=& \sqrt , \phi_1,\phi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orthonormal Basis
In mathematics, particularly linear algebra, an orthonormal basis for an inner product space ''V'' with finite dimension is a basis for V whose vectors are orthonormal, that is, they are all unit vectors and orthogonal to each other. For example, the standard basis for a Euclidean space \R^n is an orthonormal basis, where the relevant inner product is the dot product of vectors. The image of the standard basis under a rotation or reflection (or any orthogonal transformation) is also orthonormal, and every orthonormal basis for \R^n arises in this fashion. For a general inner product space V, an orthonormal basis can be used to define normalized orthogonal coordinates on V. Under these coordinates, the inner product becomes a dot product of vectors. Thus the presence of an orthonormal basis reduces the study of a finite-dimensional inner product space to the study of \R^n under dot product. Every finite-dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis, which may be ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle Number
The particle number (or number of particles) of a thermodynamic system, conventionally indicated with the letter ''N'', is the number of constituent particles in that system. The particle number is a fundamental parameter in thermodynamics which is conjugate to the chemical potential. Unlike most physical quantities, particle number is a dimensionless quantity. It is an extensive parameter, as it is directly proportional to the size of the system under consideration, and thus meaningful only for closed systems. A constituent particle is one that cannot be broken into smaller pieces at the scale of energy ''k·T'' involved in the process (where ''k'' is the Boltzmann constant and ''T'' is the temperature). For example, for a thermodynamic system consisting of a piston containing water vapour, the particle number is the number of water molecules in the system. The meaning of constituent particle, and thereby of particle number, is thus temperature-dependent. Determining the particle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Sum Of Modules
In abstract algebra, the direct sum is a construction which combines several modules into a new, larger module. The direct sum of modules is the smallest module which contains the given modules as submodules with no "unnecessary" constraints, making it an example of a coproduct. Contrast with the direct product, which is the dual notion. The most familiar examples of this construction occur when considering vector spaces (modules over a field) and abelian groups (modules over the ring Z of integers). The construction may also be extended to cover Banach spaces and Hilbert spaces. See the article decomposition of a module for a way to write a module as a direct sum of submodules. Construction for vector spaces and abelian groups We give the construction first in these two cases, under the assumption that we have only two objects. Then we generalize to an arbitrary family of arbitrary modules. The key elements of the general construction are more clearly identified by conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boson
In particle physics, a boson ( ) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0,1,2 ...). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have odd half-integer spin (,, ...). Every observed subatomic particle is either a boson or a fermion. Bosons are named after physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. Some bosons are elementary particles and occupy a special role in particle physics unlike that of fermions, which are sometimes described as the constituents of "ordinary matter". Some elementary bosons (for example, gluons) act as force carriers, which give rise to forces between other particles, while one (the Higgs boson) gives rise to the phenomenon of mass. Other bosons, such as mesons, are composite particles made up of smaller constituents. Outside the realm of particle physics, superfluidity arises because composite bosons (bose particles), such as low temperature helium-4 atoms, follow Bose–E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
