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Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
The quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary smooth potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point, it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, it is one of the few quantum-mechanical systems for which an exact, analytical solution is known. One-dimensional harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian and energy eigenstates The Hamiltonian of the particle is: \hat H = \frac + \frac k ^2 = \frac + \frac m \omega^2 ^2 \, , where is the particle's mass, is the force constant, \omega = \sqrt is the angular frequency of the oscillator, \hat is the position operator (given by in the coordinate basis), and \hat is the momentum operator (given by \hat p = -i \hbar \, \partial / \partial x in the coordinate basis). The first term in the Hamiltonian represents the kinetic energy of the particle, and the second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IATA Airport Code
An IATA airport code, also known as an IATA location identifier, IATA station code, or simply a location identifier, is a unique three-letter geocode designating many airports, cities (with one or more airports) and metropolitan areas (cities with more than one airport) around the world, defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The characters prominently displayed on bag tag, baggage tags attached at airport check-in desks are an example of a way these codes are used. The assignment of these codes is governed by IATA Resolution 763, and it is administered by the IATA's headquarters in Montreal, Canada. The codes are published semi-annually in the IATA Airline Coding Directory. IATA provides codes for airport handling entities, and for certain railway stations. Lists of airports by IATA and ICAO code, Alphabetical lists of airports sorted by IATA code are available. A List of IATA-indexed railway stations, list of railway station codes, shared in agreem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Momentum Operator
In quantum mechanics, the momentum operator is the operator associated with the linear momentum. The momentum operator is, in the position representation, an example of a differential operator. For the case of one particle in one spatial dimension, the definition is: \hat = - i \hbar \frac where is the reduced Planck constant, the imaginary unit, is the spatial coordinate, and a partial derivative (denoted by \partial/\partial x) is used instead of a total derivative () since the wave function is also a function of time. The "hat" indicates an operator. The "application" of the operator on a differentiable wave function is as follows: \hat\psi = - i \hbar \frac In a basis of Hilbert space consisting of momentum eigenstates expressed in the momentum representation, the action of the operator is simply multiplication by , i.e. it is a multiplication operator, just as the position operator is a multiplication operator in the position representation. Note that the definition ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known. In other words, the more accurately one property is measured, the less accurately the other property can be known. More formally, the uncertainty principle is any of a variety of Inequality (mathematics), mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the product of the accuracy of certain related pairs of measurements on a quantum system, such as Position (vector), position, ''x'', and momentum, ''p''. Such paired-variables are known as Complementarity (physics), complementary variables or Canonical coordinates, canonically conjugate variables. First introduced in 1927 by German physicist Werner Heisenberg, the formal inequality relating the standard deviation of position ''σx'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero-point Energy
Zero-point energy (ZPE) is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system may have. Unlike in classical mechanics, quantum systems constantly Quantum fluctuation, fluctuate in their lowest energy state as described by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Therefore, even at absolute zero, atoms and molecules retain some vibrational motion. Apart from atoms and molecules, the empty space of Vacuum state, the vacuum also has these properties. According to quantum field theory, the universe can be thought of not as isolated particles but continuous fluctuating Field (physics), fields: matter fields, whose Quantum, quanta are fermions (i.e., leptons and quarks), and Force field (physics), force fields, whose quanta are bosons (e.g., photons and gluons). All these fields have zero-point energy. These fluctuating zero-point fields lead to a kind of reintroduction of an Luminiferous aether, aether in physics since some systems can detect the existence of this energy. How ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground State
The ground state of a quantum-mechanical system is its stationary state of lowest energy; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system. An excited state is any state with energy greater than the ground state. In quantum field theory, the ground state is usually called the vacuum. If more than one ground state exists, they are said to be degenerate. Many systems have degenerate ground states. Degeneracy occurs whenever there exists a unitary operator that acts non-trivially on a ground state and commutes with the Hamiltonian of the system. According to the third law of thermodynamics, a system at absolute zero temperature exists in its ground state; thus, its entropy is determined by the degeneracy of the ground state. Many systems, such as a perfect crystal lattice, have a unique ground state and therefore have zero entropy at absolute zero. It is also possible for the highest excited state to have absolute zero temperature for sys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle In A Box
In quantum mechanics, the particle in a box model (also known as the infinite potential well or the infinite square well) describes the movement of a free particle in a small space surrounded by impenetrable barriers. The model is mainly used as a hypothetical example to illustrate the differences between classical and quantum systems. In classical systems, for example, a particle trapped inside a large box can move at any speed within the box and it is no more likely to be found at one position than another. However, when the well becomes very narrow (on the scale of a few nanometers), quantum effects become important. The particle may only occupy certain positive energy levels. Likewise, it can never have zero energy, meaning that the particle can never "sit still". Additionally, it is more likely to be found at certain positions than at others, depending on its energy level. The particle may never be detected at certain positions, known as spatial nodes. The particle in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bohr Model
In atomic physics, the Bohr model or Rutherford–Bohr model was a model of the atom that incorporated some early quantum concepts. Developed from 1911 to 1918 by Niels Bohr and building on Ernest Rutherford's nuclear Rutherford model, model, it supplanted the plum pudding model of J. J. Thomson only to be replaced by the quantum atomic model in the 1920s. It consists of a small, dense nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons. It is analogy, analogous to the structure of the Solar System, but with attraction provided by Coulomb's law, electrostatic force rather than gravity, and with the electron energies quantized (assuming only discrete values). In the history of atomic physics, it followed, and ultimately replaced, several earlier models, including Joseph Larmor's Solar System model (1897), Jean Perrin's model (1901), the Cubical atom, cubical model (1902), Hantaro Nagaoka's Saturnian model (1904), the plum pudding model (1904), Arthur Haas's quantum model (1910), the Ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermite Polynomials
In mathematics, the Hermite polynomials are a classical orthogonal polynomial sequence. The polynomials arise in: * signal processing as Hermitian wavelets for wavelet transform analysis * probability, such as the Edgeworth series, as well as in connection with Brownian motion; * combinatorics, as an example of an Appell sequence, obeying the umbral calculus; * numerical analysis as Gaussian quadrature; * physics, where they give rise to the eigenstates of the quantum harmonic oscillator; and they also occur in some cases of the heat equation (when the term \beginxu_\end is present); * systems theory in connection with nonlinear operations on Gaussian noise. * random matrix theory in Gaussian ensembles. Hermite polynomials were defined by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1810, though in scarcely recognizable form, and studied in detail by Pafnuty Chebyshev in 1859. Chebyshev's work was overlooked, and they were named later after Charles Hermite, who wrote on the polynomials in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectral Method
Spectral methods are a class of techniques used in applied mathematics and scientific computing to numerically solve certain differential equations. The idea is to write the solution of the differential equation as a sum of certain " basis functions" (for example, as a Fourier series which is a sum of sinusoids) and then to choose the coefficients in the sum in order to satisfy the differential equation as well as possible. Spectral methods and finite-element methods are closely related and built on the same ideas; the main difference between them is that spectral methods use basis functions that are generally nonzero over the whole domain, while finite element methods use basis functions that are nonzero only on small subdomains (compact support). Consequently, spectral methods connect variables ''globally'' while finite elements do so ''locally''. Partially for this reason, spectral methods have excellent error properties, with the so-called "exponential convergence" being the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wave Function
In quantum physics, a wave function (or wavefunction) is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The most common symbols for a wave function are the Greek letters and (lower-case and capital psi (letter), psi, respectively). Wave functions are complex number, complex-valued. For example, a wave function might assign a complex number to each point in a region of space. The Born rule provides the means to turn these complex probability amplitudes into actual probabilities. In one common form, it says that the squared modulus of a wave function that depends upon position is the probability density function, probability density of measurement in quantum mechanics, measuring a particle as being at a given place. The integral of a wavefunction's squared modulus over all the system's degrees of freedom must be equal to 1, a condition called ''normalization''. Since the wave function is complex-valued, only its relative phase and relative magnitud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eigenstate
In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that embodies the knowledge of a quantum system. Quantum mechanics specifies the construction, evolution, and measurement of a quantum state. The result is a prediction for the system represented by the state. Knowledge of the quantum state, and the rules for the system's evolution in time, exhausts all that can be known about a quantum system. Quantum states may be defined differently for different kinds of systems or problems. Two broad categories are * wave functions describing quantum systems using position or momentum variables and * the more abstract vector quantum states. Historical, educational, and application-focused problems typically feature wave functions; modern professional physics uses the abstract vector states. In both categories, quantum states divide into pure versus mixed states, or into coherent states and incoherent states. Categories with special properties include stationary states for time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eigenvalue
In linear algebra, an eigenvector ( ) or characteristic vector is a vector that has its direction unchanged (or reversed) by a given linear transformation. More precisely, an eigenvector \mathbf v of a linear transformation T is scaled by a constant factor \lambda when the linear transformation is applied to it: T\mathbf v=\lambda \mathbf v. The corresponding eigenvalue, characteristic value, or characteristic root is the multiplying factor \lambda (possibly a negative or complex number). Geometrically, vectors are multi-dimensional quantities with magnitude and direction, often pictured as arrows. A linear transformation rotates, stretches, or shears the vectors upon which it acts. A linear transformation's eigenvectors are those vectors that are only stretched or shrunk, with neither rotation nor shear. The corresponding eigenvalue is the factor by which an eigenvector is stretched or shrunk. If the eigenvalue is negative, the eigenvector's direction is reversed. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
