Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-theoretical-physics-ii-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/3/b/solution
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2018 3 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
The fixed-particle-number sector is spanned by and . In this basis,The relevant quantum Gibbs state is normalized within this two-dimensional sector, not over all particle numbers. With and , the exponential of a Pauli vector givesThereforeIts eigenstates are , with energies and probabilities . These are nonnegative and sum to one, so the matrix is Hermitian and has trace one. Its purity of a density operator isFor , the zero-temperature limit is the pure ground-state projector,with purity one. As , and , with purity . At every strictly positive finite temperature and finite , both eigenvalues are nonzero, so the state is mixed. If , the two levels are degenerate and the Gibbs state is at all temperatures, including its zero-temperature limit.
Using dimensionless Von Neumann entropy, , givesFor nonzero , as , while as . More precisely, the high-temperature expansion is , and the low-temperature form is . The thermodynamic entropy includes an overall factor .
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