Expectations with respect to the Gibbs state of the harmonic oscillator

Author(s):  
Sergio A. Albeverio ◽  
Raphael J. Høegh-Krohn
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 404-426
Author(s):  
Vincze Gy. Szasz A.

Phenomena of damped harmonic oscillator is important in the description of the elementary dissipative processes of linear responses in our physical world. Its classical description is clear and understood, however it is not so in the quantum physics, where it also has a basic role. Starting from the Rosen-Chambers restricted variation principle a Hamilton like variation approach to the damped harmonic oscillator will be given. The usual formalisms of classical mechanics, as Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, Poisson brackets, will be covered too. We shall introduce two Poisson brackets. The first one has only mathematical meaning and for the second, the so-called constitutive Poisson brackets, a physical interpretation will be presented. We shall show that only the fundamental constitutive Poisson brackets are not invariant throughout the motion of the damped oscillator, but these show a kind of universal time dependence in the universal time scale of the damped oscillator. The quantum mechanical Poisson brackets and commutation relations belonging to these fundamental time dependent classical brackets will be described. Our objective in this work is giving clearer view to the challenge of the dissipative quantum oscillator.


Author(s):  
Jochen Rau

Even though the general framework of statistical mechanics is ultimately targeted at the description of macroscopic systems, it is illustrative to apply it first to some simple systems: a harmonic oscillator, a rotor, and a spin in a magnetic field. These applications serve to illustrate how a key function associated with the Gibbs state, the so-called partition function, is calculated in practice, how the entropy function is obtained via a Legendre transformation, and how such systems behave in the limits of high and low temperatures. After discussing these simple systems, this chapter considers a first example where multiple constituents are assembled into a macroscopic system: a basic model of a paramagnetic salt. It also investigates the size of energy fluctuations and how—in the case of the paramagnet—these fluctuations scale with the number of constituents.


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