« first day (5225 days earlier)   

00:00
As in what recently have you been curious/reading about
 
3 hours later…
02:58
God damn gpt...
 
2 hours later…
05:08
@TobiasFünke here is an example of a paper i mean journals.aps.org/pra/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevA.54.656
They state the $\langle N \rangle$ in equation (4), but it is rather unexplicit (it is just the series representation of the polylog of order 3)
I think the complexity in obtaining an exact expression for $\langle N \rangle$ is in dealing with the degeneracy factor for each energy level of an anisotropic harmonic well, which is why I think there are no exact expressions.
Also, if you open up pathria & beale (~page 208 in my edition), you find a discussion of BEC in an anisotropic harmonic well and they too split off the ground state contribution to $\langle N \rangle$ and then approximate the rest using an approximate density of states.
also the above paper i guess is treating an isotropic well
 
2 hours later…
07:36
i think society and life is going to be unrecognisable a few decades from now
even more so than modern life is unrecognisable compared to 1950s life
it is because of technology
07:47
@User198 if you mean e.g. spin operators, then the result is some-times called Jordan-Wigner theorem
@TobiasFünke interesting
is this like some general result about a relationship between hilbert spaces and lie algebras
i thought the relationship was just representation theory
but one needs hermitian representations, so maybe the relationship can get deeper
08:14
@User198 and for a finite-dimensional single-particle state, also the CAR/CCR on the corresponding Fock spaces are equivalent (given some mathematical conditions, similar to SvN)
Arai's book on inequivalent representations could be of interest
@Allie Have you not seen a coherent fuller derivation? The "real" system has a dispersion relation that looks like $\omega\propto\left|\sin ka\right|$ that only exists for $k$ between $\pm\dfrac\pi{2a}$ and nowhere else. The Debye continuum approximation is merely equivalent to taking the small $k$ linearisation limit and extrapolating it outwards. This means that, yes, this linearisation limit has to terminate abruptly.
@Allie No, the difference simply doesnt matter. Real world crystals have finite sizes and not infinite sizes.
...I meant CAR (not CCR), because for a finite-dimensional single-particle space, the Fock space is also finite-dimensional for fermions. CCR of course needs infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces
08:33
Does this make any sense to you? If $J\to0$ the field approaches $v$ as it is stated. Of course the first term is zero because $\delta\Gamma/\delta\phi=0$, but then every term of the series is zero if $J=0$ because $J=0\implies\overline{\phi}=v$ and so $\overline{\phi}-v=0$
I mean, okay, if $J=0$ the $N=1$ is zero because of $(12.45)$, but so is every other term of $(12.44)$ because of the $[\overline{\phi}(x_i)-v]$ factors
08:57
how can $v=\bar \phi$ and $v=\lim \bar \phi$?
it is confusing to me, but I don't know too much about vertex functions etc. Which book is this from?
@SillyGoose thanks, but I cannot open it right now. My point was that the derivation of the bosonic partition function in the GCE is standard textbook knowledge (as you seem to know?), but not necessarily so in the CE. In any case, I would not expect even for the HO in the GCE an analytical expression for most quantities. But as far as I've understood you, you have one for the chemical potential and or the PF?
perhaps this is of interest:
0
Q: Degeneracy of states in an ensemble of $N$ harmonic oscillators in $d$ dimensions

TomSIn the canonical ensemble consisting of $N$ independent harmonic oscillators in $d$ spatial dimensions one has to evaluate sums like $$ \sum_n \ldots e^{-\beta E_n} = \sum_E g_E \ldots e^{-\beta E} $$ where $n$ labels the states, $E$ labels energies and $g_E(N,d)$ is the degeneracy of the energy ...

09:13
@TobiasFünke when I wrote that, it is implied by $J=0$. The limit is taken as $J\to0$
@TobiasFünke a set of notes online
@Feynmate no I meant at the very beginning of the chapter
and then after eq. 12.44
is it by K. Cahill? I remember the font lol
or Fradkin
yeah it is also covered in Fradkin's book
@TobiasFünke Oh, you're right; I don't know
09:28
yeah the notation is confusing
ah no, that does not make sense I am afraid
09:58
i got rid of the hot network questions sidebar and phew it's so much nicer, I should have done it sooner!
10:10
Agreed 👍 they generate more heat than light 🕯️
why nicer? :d
I mean it is just at the right hand side, and does not take too much space, no?
But, as they say, some like it hot🔥
> The movie. Banned in China: Upon its original release, Kansas banned the film from being shown in the state, explaining that cross-dressing was "too disturbing for Kansans".
I find it a bit distracting and I seldom care about the topics/questions on there. it seems that for me it got replaced by a list of recent badges and tags as well (?) not sure if they were always there... i don't think I noticed them before
@ACuriousMind Hm. I meant to ask: "Does there exist than some "relation" for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, or do they don't have one at all."
@TobiasFünke Ah ok. Thank you.
1.) How do we know the dimension of the Hilbert space we are working in? Is it the number of dimensions of the $\psi(x)$?

For $N$ dimensional Hilbert space $\psi$ will be a vector of dimension $N$ and when $\psi(x)$ is a function (i.e. a infinite-dimensional vector) than the dimension of Hilbert space will be also infinite?
2.) When we have $[A,H]=0$ than that operator $A$ commutes with the Hamiltonian and the quantity is conserved and also we can measure one without distrurbing the measurment of the other. Cool.

I found out of examples: $[x,p_y]=0$
$[L^2,H]=0$ - for Hydrogen atom (spherically symetric)

Do you know of any more examples (maybe less known) ?
10:26
@qwerty no, I only have watched tags (additionally to the HNQ)
yeah i prefer the recent tags/badges
@User198 without any judging: your questions seem sooo random ^^
1. What do you mean by "know the dimensions"?
There are vector spaces. There is the notion of dimensions. You can check if a specific vector space has a specific dimension (at least all examples I know can be checked ;))
But no, not all function spaces are infinite-dimensional. The vector space of polynomials of degree $n$ is $n$-dimensional (vector space operations are the canonical ones).
@User198 $[H,P]=0$ for translationally invariant systems... and there are many more examples...
@User198 e.g. the total charge operator in QFT commutes with the Hamiltonian. this also means charge is conserved over time
I think I got it. The effective action is a functional of $\phi_c$, $\Gamma[\phi_c]$. The classical field $\overline{\phi}$, i.e. the one that reduces to $v$ in the zero current limit, is only the solution to the EoM,
$\frac{\delta\Gamma}{\delta \phi_c}\bigg\rvert_{\phi_0}=-J(x)$. Now we're working with fixed current (i.e. $\phi_0$ is a function of $J$), so sending it to zero we get the desired result. $\phi_c$ is just an arbitrary variable
@Feynmate what physics do u intend to focus on once u started doing physics as hobby?
10:38
I don't know. I hate thinking about the future, the present is painful enough
Great, now I sound like an emo
i have a list of topics
but u can learn whatever u like, physics or not physics
@Feynmate embrace your inner emo
u might also want to expand to other knowledge
i think, even now, u just indendently learn most things instead of learning in university classes
@TobiasFünke I know xD soorry.
@TobiasFünke Ok thanks
@RyderRude Thanks
@User198 what is your view of how physics relates to the ontology
u said u dont believe in absolute truths, so u may just dismiss any discussions of ontology
10:56
Hm. I dont know if they are related.
Physics just models reality via approximations so it can not give any absolute answer (what ever that means).

And ontology asks questions that I think will never be answered xD.
@RyderRude What is your view?
@User198 there is a variant of this view which gives absolute answers. e.g. u attribute a hierarchy of structures to reality, and these structures are what humans discover as "approximate models".
so the structures are out there. the layers of hierarchy smoothly blend into other layers (e.g. relativistic mech blends into Newtonian mech in the $c\to \infty$ limit)
to give an analogy, i would maybe think of fractals here
the structures are out there in the fractals. deeper theories describe deeper structures
@User198 my view is perhaps that the structures that humans have come up with are maybe not "out there"
as in, these structures are how humans describe their subjective experience, instead of an (approximate) description of reality
but i am also open to the other view where physics is giving an approximate description of reality itself
11:25
@RyderRude I see. Yes. You always end up with Münchhausen trilemma in the end.
@RyderRude Like of subjectivism/existentialism? But this also is like the question: "Is math invented or discovered?".
The formulation here would be:
"Does physics describe reality in it of itself or does it just help us model our subjective experiences of the world we see around us?"
@User198 yes
@User198 yes
i think classical mech gives strong vibes of (at least approximately) describing reality itself, which is why tons of physicists still cling on to that view
but some interpretations of quantum mech (like relative collapse interpretations) are explicitly about modeling ur own observations of the world instead of modeling the universe
if these interpretations are somewhat correct, then my view would be : there is the physical entity that is you, and there is the physical entity that is the rest of reality. these two interact to form ur subjective experience. and physics describes this interface between the two
@User198 This is a bizarre question - there are infinitely many pairs of commuting operators. What do you hope to gain from more examples?
@User198 I also can't quite decipher where this question comes from. What do you think the significance of the CCR is? Like, why do we care about it?
11:47
@RyderRude Ikd, it seems like some sort of solipsism. I don't know if that direction of thinking is productive.
@ACuriousMind Ah ok. I don't know. I wanted to see some nontrivial cases of where the operators commute. Maybe see some cases that are not present in CM.
I don't know what "not present in CM" means
@ACuriousMind Some situations that are exclusive to QM, because $[p,H]= 0$ is both for QM and CM systems that are translationally invariant, so its not so interesting.
@User198 Can you give an example of a situation that is "exclusive to QM"? What does that even mean?
@User198 solipsism is an attitude.... one is acknowleding an outer reality here, so the attitude is not solipsism. it is saying that physics, at the fundamental level, doesnt describe the outer reality
but it is just a speculation. and physics at an effective level does describe an outer reality
@ACuriousMind Like related to spin
11:59
@User198 And what's your question about spin? The spin operators, depending on your system, may or may not commute with the Hamiltonian.
i am open to the other idea where reality is like a fractal and different models describe different zooms of the fractical
@ACuriousMind Ok. Thanks. I see now that my question was ill posed.
in this idea, physics, including QM, describes objective reality approximately
@RyderRude Yeah
@ACuriousMind I think that it is the defining relation of quantum mechanics that differentiates it from classical mechanics.
But now SvN theorem says it only holds for infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces.
So I was confused what about finite dimensional Hilbert spaces
@User198 "the defining characteristic of QM" is a vgaue term. but u can look at Von Neumann postulates for some sort of defining characteristic. it doesnt reference CCR
12:09
So the conclusion is that the CCR clearly cannot be "the defining relation", right? :P
but also, Von Neumann postulates r too general imo. they also cover classical theories
@ACuriousMind Yeah it seems so. xD
I don't even really know what that means - to even write it down as the commutator of operators on a Hilbert space, you have to already have built the entire mathematical formalism of QM with Hilbert spaces and operators and so on.
Can you give some system that is described in a finite dimensional Hilbert space?
The idea that observables should be linear operators on a Hilbert space instead of functions on a classical phase space is to me much more what "defines" quantum mechanics
12:10
the problem is that even hilbert spaces and operators arent the defining characteristic of QM
see Koopman Von Neumann classical mech
i have stopped trying to get the "defining characteristic of QM". there r too many characteristics
Feynman might say interference is the defining characteristic
That classical mechanics is contained in this idea of QM as a subset does not mean it's not the hallmark of what we mean by doing QM.
some other person might say it is Heisenberg uncertainty
@User198 it's any particle where you don't care about its position but only about its spin
i personally think it is useless to get a defining characteristic. different things can be called "quantum theory" in different contexts
@RyderRude Dirac-von Neumann axioms?
12:13
and we've also engineered a lot of other quantum systems where the system can access effectively only finitely many levels
the usual description of lasers is in terms of two-state or three-state systems
@User198 yes. the problem is that they also cover classical mech as a subset of theories
i'm a bit confused about the purpose of a community wiki post; are these supposed to be questions+answers with a likelihood of broad appeal and hence contributions/edits by a large number of people?
as is usual, one can generalise ideas beyond recognition. e.g. u can define hilbert spaces with quaternions and call that "quantum theory"
so it is useless to talk about whats the most general quantum theory
@ACuriousMind Ah ok. I see. For that system (if we don't care about position) than it is obvious that $[{\hat {x}}_{i},{\hat {p}}_{j}]=i\hbar \delta _{ij}$ doesn't hold. Because we are not even considering $x$.
@qwerty They're essentially historical baggage: Early SO introduced Community Wiki before they introduced Suggested Edits, i.e. this used to be the only way by which you could make your posts editable by other people. See this from 14 years ago :P
12:16
@ACuriousMind Ok thanks.
@RyderRude Ah ok. Thanks.
some other physicist might generalise the notion of hilbert spaces and get a "generalised quantum theory"
there already exist some of these ideas
e.g. string theory is called a quantum theory but it doesnt have time evolution so far
it only has asymptotic evolution
@ACuriousMind i searched on meta and saw something like that... I suggested a question have CW status removed as it seemed super specific to that one person, but it was declined as the OP had asked for resource recs (imo naively)
@qwerty well, we have a local policy (cf. physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7041/50583 and links) that recommendation questions are CW, but the reason for that is only because CW posts don't yield rep
so the breadth of appeal of the question is irrelevant in that context
the D-V postulates do not require time evolution, so string theory is admissible as a quantum theory according to D-V. what is admissible as a quantum theory depends on how general ur definition is
@ACuriousMind ah, I see. thanks
it seemed in this instance that the recommendation wasn't that relevant since it seemed the op was only asking due to misinterpreting a phrase, but I guess it's not a big deal either way
13:20
@User198 optical lattices, for example, are well-described by a finite-dimensional (single-particle) Hilbert space
or tight-binding models... and so on.
13:43
@TobiasFünke Alright thanks.
14:09
I know that integrals over Grassmann variables only share the name with real variable integrals but I wondered if there is some similar enough structure to talk about a "domain" of integration, just like for the real line the domain is $\mathbb{R}$
I know that it's not necessary, I just wondered if there a way to see these two ideas as an application of a broader, more general concept
Maybe you want to think of them as basis elements of a vector space
14:27
@Feynmate You can try checking here idk
14:48
That is a nice article
@User198 the 2d ising model (outside the thermodynamic limit)
15:14
it is a free will debate between philosophy phds
@naturallyInconsistent I think I realized why it might not matter, right before I went to bed
Because you approximate the DOS as continuous, the result you get seems to be completely independent of what the size of your supercell is

« first day (5225 days earlier)