The Hartree-Fock method minimizes the expectation of an interacting-electron Hamiltonian over normalized Slater determinants of orthonormal one-particle spin orbitals. It is a variational, self-consistent mean-field approximation. The determinant enforces fermionic antisymmetry exactly within that class, while each orbital responds to the mean charge density and a nonlocal exchange operator generated by the occupied orbitals.

For an electron gas, this accounts for kinetic pressure, the average electrostatic field, same-spin exchange and the associated exchange hole, and possible spin polarization. It does not account for general dynamical electron correlation, such as the correlated avoidance of opposite-spin electrons, and cannot capture all screening or collective fluctuations merely by optimizing one determinant. Uniform plane waves are an additional restriction, not the definition of Hartree-Fock itself.

In the energy functional, the one-body term is the sum of electron kinetic energy and ionic-potential energy. The direct two-body term is the Hartree energy: the classical interaction of the mean electron density with itself. Its factor $1/2$ avoids counting every pair twice. The negative Fock term comes from exchanging the two indistinguishable electron labels in the antisymmetric state. For a spin-independent interaction, spin orthogonality makes this exchange act only between equal spin components. For an orbital interacting with itself, direct and exchange contributions cancel exactly; the exchange term removes the spurious one-electron self-interaction. Ionic background terms and their prescribed cancellation must be included consistently with the direct term.

A GaAs–AlGaAs semiconductor heterostructure confines electrons normal to the interface in a semiconductor quantum well. Remote modulation doping supplies a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas. Negative split gates deplete it laterally, leaving a narrow quantum point contact with discrete transverse subbands and continuous longitudinal momentum. A single occupied subband requires transverse excitation gaps larger than thermal and applied-bias energies.

Take $e>0$ and count one spin-resolved channel. In a length $L$, right-moving states have density $Ldk/(2\pi )$; each contributes charge current $-e{v}_k/L$. ThusThe second expression is the right reservoir's left-moving contribution expressed in the same left-to-right conventional-current sign. Since $v_{k}dk=dE/\hslash$,The limit needs $k_{B}T,|eV|\ll \mu -E_0$ and ballistic transport. Velocity cancels the one-dimensional state density. Two degenerate spin channels give $2e^2/h$, not an extra factor hidden in the quoted single-channel result.

For elastic phase-coherent scattering, expand each incident flux-normalized mode in outgoing lead modes. Its transmitted fraction is $|(t_E{)}_{nm}{|}^2$; sum over all open outgoing $n$ and occupied incident $m$. Linearizing the reservoir occupations gives the Landauer formulaThe source's $T_E^{+}$ denotes this amplitude matrix, not temperature or a probability matrix. Flux normalization is essential: ordinary wave-amplitude ratios need a velocity factor. Reservoirs equilibrate, contacts supply incoming Fermi distributions, and inelastic processes within the channel are neglected. Spin is included among channel labels. At $T\to 0$, only transmissions at $\mu$ contribute; perfect channels each add one quantum. This is a two-terminal conductance including contact resistance, even with no internal backscattering.

Trace I has steps near integer $2e^2/h$ as less-negative gate voltage opens successive spin-degenerate subbands. At the printed parallel field $11\mathrm{T}$, Zeeman splitting separates the two spin thresholds, allowing approximately half-sized steps in the plotted units; the onset also shifts. Thermal broadening, imperfect transmission and unresolved thresholds round the plateaux. A parallel field primarily resolves spin in the ideal thin-interface model; finite layer thickness can also shift subband energies. The plot alone does not determine a unique effective $g$ factor or microscopic disorder model.

A normal Fermi liquid is an interacting fermion phase continuously connected to a Fermi gas without broken symmetry. Its Landau quasiparticles are dressed particle/hole excitations near the Fermi surface, with the same conserved quantum numbers, finite quasiparticle residue and a decay width small compared with their excitation energy. Their reference dispersion already includes zero-temperature interaction renormalization; “bare quasiparticle” here does not mean a free atom.^[ref]

The rate assumes $k_{B}T,|\xi |\ll E_F$, $\xi =ϵ-\mu$, regular scattering amplitudes and density of states, equilibrium Fermi-Dirac distributions, and two-body collisions conserving energy and momentum. Pauli exclusion principle restricts the available phase space. It describes a regular three-dimensional normal liquid, not a one-dimensional interacting electron liquid. On the surface, ${\tau }^{-1}\propto T^2$; at $T=0$ and $\xi >0$, it is proportional to ${\xi }^2$. Hence excitations become increasingly sharp. The quoted asymmetric occupation factor is for particle out-scattering: a hole decay or full spectral width also needs the complementary in-scattering process; it does not imply exponentially stable deep holes.

Symmetry $f_{ab}=f_{ba}$ cancels the quadratic functional's factor one-half, giving the thermal Landau quasiparticle energy shiftHere $a=(\mathbf{k},\lambda )$, and the derivative is with respect to an occupation, not particle density. Replacing the homogeneous momentum sum by an energy integral defines a smooth angularly averaged kernel $H_a(ϵ)$. With $\delta n=n_F(ϵ;\mu ,T)-\Theta ({\mu }_0-ϵ)$,Fixed density gives $\delta \mu =-({\pi }^2/6)(k_{B}T{)}^2{D}^{\prime }({\mu }_0)/D({\mu }_0)+O(T^4)$; fixed chemical potential instead has $\delta \mu =0$. Thus ${\widetilde{ϵ}}_a={ϵ}_a+O(T^2)$ in either case, provided the kernels are smooth and no instability intervenes. This is the Sommerfeld expansion; singular spectra require separate treatment.^[ref]

The leading entropy is therefore that of quasiparticles with their zero-temperature effective mass:$D^{\ast }$ here is the total, spin-summed density of states. The plotted low-temperature slopes require the enhanced masses $5.4m$ at molar volume $26.2\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$ and $2.7m$ at $36.8\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3\mathrm{mo}{\mathrm{l}}^{-1}$, rather than the bare-mass predictions. At fixed molar particle number, ${\gamma }_{\mathrm{mol}}\propto m^{\ast }{V}_{\mathrm{mol}}^{2/3}$. Agreement is restricted to the low-temperature limit: the measured curves depart markedly from a fixed-mass ideal-gas extrapolation at higher temperature. This supports long-lived quasiparticles with smooth low-energy parameters, but heat capacity alone does not measure their lifetime or prove adiabatic continuity.

Combining the two results gives the GMR ratio for identical thickness-averaged layers:Thus a field that aligns initially antiparallel moments produces a resistance decrease. One spin channel conducts well throughout the aligned stack; in the antiparallel stack both channels sample strong scattering. For the low-resistance-state normalization,Normalizing the field-induced drop by $R_{AP}$ instead gives $(a-b{)}^2/(a+b{)}^2$. Large channel contrast can produce a large giant magnetoresistance; equal channels give none, and common nonmagnetic scattering dilutes the contrast. This is the spin-dependent alignment effect, distinct from anisotropic magnetoresistance of an individual magnetic layer.

The Mott two-current model treats the two spin populations as parallel conduction channels when spin-flip scattering is weak. Thus $\sigma ={\sigma }_{\uparrow }+{\sigma }_{\downarrow }$ and ${\rho }^{-1}={\rho }_{\uparrow }^{-1}+{\rho }_{\downarrow }^{-1}$. Light, broad-band carriers conduct efficiently; scattering into narrow $d$-like states relaxes their current. In a simple spin-conserving $s$–$d$ picture,In copper, the filled $d$ bands supply little final-state phase space at $E_F$, so both spin channels have low resistivity. In cobalt, the nearly filled majority $d$ band suppresses majority-channel scattering, while minority $d$ states remain available. The stated iron reversal corresponds to stronger scattering-weighted majority-channel phase space: its majority $d$ band is not closed as in cobalt. Band filling, exchange splitting, velocities and scattering matrix elements set this scattering-weighted spin-channel asymmetry; majority population alone does not select the better conductor. The given iron ordering is a material/scattering input, not a universal consequence of the two-current postulate. Different impurities and interfaces can change the asymmetry.^[ref]

The static Lindhard dielectric function describes the real, zero-frequency linear response of a uniform free electron gas. Here ${ϵ}_1=\mathrm{Re}ϵ$, $\mathbf{r}$ is the position operator, and $\mathbf{q}$ is the perturbation wavevector, $q=|\mathbf{q}|$, $V$ the normalization volume, $e>0$ the elementary charge, and ${ϵ}_0$ the vacuum permittivity. The normalized one-electron states are ${\psi }_{\mathbf{k}}=V^{-1/2}{e}^{i\mathbf{k}\cdot \mathbf{r}}$ with $E_{\mathbf{k}}={\hslash }^2{k}^2/(2m_e)$; $f(E)$ is their Fermi-Dirac distribution occupation. Both momentum sums exclude spin; the prefactor two counts the two equal spin populations. The density-operator matrix element is ${\delta }_{{\mathbf{k}}^{\prime },\mathbf{k}+\mathbf{q}}$. Coincident energy denominators are interpreted by the static limit or Cauchy principal value.

A weak total electric potential ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{tot}}$ perturbs an electron by $-e{\varphi }_{\mathrm{tot}}$. First-order state mixing produces $\delta n=e{\Pi }_0(q){\varphi }_{\mathrm{tot}}$, whereThe induced charge is $-e\delta n$. Self-consistent Poisson equation screening then gives ${\varphi }_{\mathrm{ext}}=ϵ{\varphi }_{\mathrm{tot}}$, with $ϵ=1+e^2{\Pi }_0/({ϵ}_0{q}^2)$. This is the random phase approximation: use the independent-electron response to the self-consistent total field.^[ref]

At zero temperature $f(E_{\mathbf{k}})=\Theta (k_F-k)$. Shifting the integration variable in the second occupation term givesThe two angular integrals are equal. Using the supplied integral, with $x=q/(2k_F)$, givesThe limits are $F(0)=1$, $F(1)=1/2$ and $F(x)\sim 1/(3x^2)$ for large $x$. The first recovers Thomas-Fermi screening; the logarithm produces the Kohn singularity of static Lindhard screening at $q=2k_F$.

Use the Fourier transform convention $\rho (\mathbf{q})=\int d^{3}r{e}^{-i\mathbf{q}\cdot \mathbf{r}}\rho (\mathbf{r})$. A point charge $Ze$ has total screened charge $Ze/ϵ(q)$ and induced charge $-Ze[1-ϵ(q{)}^{-1}]$. Angular inversion therefore gives the radial induced-charge screening kernelIn particular, ${\rho }_{\mathrm{ind}}(\mathbf{q}=0)=-Ze$: the total screening charge is negative although its local density can oscillate in sign.

Integrate the sine transform by parts twice; $g(0)=g(\infty )=0$ removes the boundary terms. For the Friedel density tail from a derivative singularity, write $Q=2k_F$ and $g^{\prime \prime }(q)\sim C/(q-Q)$. ThenIndeed, near $Q$ the principal value transform is ${\int }_{-\infty }^{\infty }\sin [(Q+s)r]ds/s=\pi \cos (Qr)$ for $r>0$. Smooth terms do not remove this leading oscillatory long-range contribution. Thus ${\rho }_{\mathrm{ind}}\propto \cos (2k_{F}r)/r^3$.

For a three-dimensional, single-valley gas with two spin states, the Friedel oscillation wavelength from carrier density isLow-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy near exposed dopants can map the oscillatory local density of states, with a Fourier feature near $2k_F$ at the Fermi energy. An energy-resolved tunnelling image measures local spectral weight, not directly the bulk energy-integrated charge: comparing occupied-bias maps and accounting for the surface geometry is necessary. In actual GaAs, the background relative permittivity and band effective mass change screening strengths; they do not change this wavelength at the stated density.

An egg-laying mammal of the lineage containing living platypuses and echidnas. Living distribution in Australasia does not describe the full fossil distribution.

The clade containing living marsupials and placental mammals and their common ancestor. These living branches are distinct from the broader total lineages Metatheria and Eutheria.

Production and delivery of milk to offspring. It is characteristic of living mammals, including egg-laying monotremes.