The stated annihilation conditions can be solved algebraically, even though (b) shows they are not ground-state conditions for the full printed Hamiltonian. Invert the canonical transformation:For , the commutators giveThus both and annihilate it precisely whenThe normalized two-mode squeezed vacuum isThe factorial from the exponential cancels those generated by the two creation operators. Normalization follows from a geometric series; the problem does not require its value, but it makes the subsequent partial trace explicit.
For comparison, the actual ground wave function of the printed stable Hamiltonian isIt follows directly from the two normal-mode Gaussian vacua. The proposed is instead the exact ground state of the distinct pair-coupling Hamiltonian under its stability condition. Omitting the remaining terms of silently would change the problem.
First trace the state explicitly specified in (c). orthogonality in the oscillator removes terms with different occupation numbers:For a thermal oscillator of frequency , the ratio of successive Boltzmann weights is . Consequently the conditional answer for that two-mode squeezed state isAt this is interpreted by the limit . The reduced state is mixed for nonzero squeezing although the joint state is pure; its effective thermal statistics arise from entanglement, not from heating by a bath.
The ground-state identification must still be qualified. For the true coordinate-coupled ground state, direct normal-mode averages giveTheir ratio is , rather than . Therefore this reduced state is not thermal with respect to the original bare frequency for . It does have an exact thermal representation for an effective oscillator of mass and frequencyThe corresponding occupation basis is that of , not that of the original . This follows by matching the Gaussian variances to and its momentum counterpart. A direct reduced-Gaussian eigenfunction calculation gives the same effective frequency and geometric eigenvalues.[ref]
Entropy and Area by Mark Srednicki. Equations (1)–(5), printed pp. 2–3 of the preprint: two coupled oscillators, partial trace and the effective thermal oscillator frequency
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2017 1 c Solution 2026-10-18
At fixed particle number , write and . The contact interaction between two ring modes has energy eigenvaluesFor , the nonnegative product is minimized at the endpoints. ConsequentlyFor this is a two-dimensional degenerate ground state subspace. instead has the unique Fock vacuum. In this projected model, putting all particles into one traveling mode avoids the extra exchange contribution paid when both distinct modes are occupied.
For the alternative coefficients, put and . Then is again minimized at , with . Evenness of is unnecessary for this result; the balanced Fock state maximizes this attractive-interaction energy instead of minimizing it.
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2017 1 d Solution 2026-10-18
Add the one-particle energy term . It is diagonal in the same Fock state basis as the contact interaction between two ring modes. For , the ordered basis givesFor , the middle eigenvalue exceeds the mean of the two endpoint eigenvalues by , so it cannot be the smallest. The ground state is therefore if , and if , withIf , every normalized linear combination of the two endpoint Fock states is a ground state. The same endpoint argument works for general fixed , since the interaction contribution is a concave quadratic function of the mode occupation number.
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2017 1 e Solution 2026-10-18
For distinct positive integers , use normalized box modes and . Their contact interaction overlaps obeyUnlike traveling ring modes, these standing modes also allow pair conversion. For the first two box modes, or any distinct pair without a third-harmonic resonance, the contact interaction between two box modes isThe last two terms change an individual mode occupation number by two while conserving total particle number. Thus the Hamiltonian operator is not diagonal in the Fock state basis, and minimizing diagonal entries alone does not find its ground state. For example, at with no dispersion, has the lowest energy , below either unmixed endpoint's .
The wording permits modes beyond the first two. For completeness, the identity givesWhen , add ; when , add . These extra terms change an individual occupation number by one and require diagonalizing the corresponding fixed- matrix as well.
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2017 2 a Solution 2026-10-18
Complete the square in the potential energy. With ,The quantum harmonic oscillator is translated without changing its level spacing. If is its normalized unforced energy eigenstate, thenEquivalently, . The ground state position is centered at , and its position uncertainty remains .
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2018 4 b Solution 2026-10-18
Complete the square, keeping the equilibrium displacement signed:Write for position relative to the new minimum. By the sudden approximation, the state immediately after the quantum quench is still the old vacuum. Its initial means areThe old ground state has and . Thus , but the energy measured above the new potential minimum isThe extra term is the excitation energy above the new ground state; the zero-point term remains part of the energy above the potential minimum.
Let be the base-spin insertion matrix. In the eigenbasis from solution, its diagonal matrix elements vanish: . Hencenot only at large but for every finite ring at zero field.
This vanishing is not merely an averaging artifact hiding a finite-temperature ordered phase. The two-point correlation function is . In the thermodynamic limit it becomes , with finite correlation length for every and . Thermal domain walls destroy long-range alignment in this one-dimensional short-range system. At zero temperature, the two fully aligned ground states are degenerate; that limiting case must be distinguished from any fixed positive temperature.
For a uniform classical spin with , the energy per bond isThe strict inequalities among the couplings make the direction the unique easy axis. ThusThese uniform configurations are also global classical minima: the largest singular value of the diagonal exchange matrix is , so each bond has energy at least , and both configurations saturate that bound.
A global rotation by about the axis sends to , preserves every exchange product, and exchanges the two ground states. A rotation about does the same. The broken discrete symmetry can be represented by either operation.
The Hamiltonian has the discrete symmetry described in solution, whereas either selected easy-axis ground state has a nonzero order parameter and is not invariant under it. This is spontaneous symmetry breaking: the equations preserve the symmetry while the selected macroscopic quantum state does not.
An infinitesimal longitudinal magnetic field selects one orientation. The defining order of limits isin the ordered zero-temperature phase, with the opposite sign for . A symmetric finite-volume quantum state can instead have zero magnetization. Quantum ordered states are generally dressed by fluctuations rather than exact fully polarized product states, because unequal transverse exchange can create pairs of spin waves. Discrete easy-axis symmetry does not imply a gapless Goldstone mode; indeed solution finds a nonzero spin wave gap. Nor does this argument assert positive-temperature order in a one-dimensional short-range chain.[ref]
Statistical Field Theory by David Tong. Section 1.2.1, spontaneous symmetry breaking and the order of thermodynamic and zero-field limits
Choose the positive- reference ground state and use the cyclic rotationThis is a right-handed permutation, so it preserves the spin commutation relations. It puts the ordered direction along the Holstein–Primakoff transformation's quantization axis. To the required order,The longitudinal exchange contributes . The transverse terms contributeDropping the constant and all terms of order or smaller gives the stated linear spin-wave approximation, withThe anomalous pair terms are present because the two transverse couplings differ. A different right-handed choice of transverse axes can change the sign of by a boson phase convention, while leaving the dispersion relation unchanged.
Interpret the two displayed exchange components as belonging to the common nearest-neighbour sum with coefficient . Write and, for , . The source explicitly fixes but does not separately constrain in this question; keeping covers either field direction.
For classical vectors of length , define . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives , and . Each term is therefore bounded below, soUniform alignment along the field saturates every bound:Equality requires all planar vectors to be parallel with length , and the nonzero field then fixes their direction. At , every uniformly oriented vector in the plane is a classical ground state:A nonuniform configuration cannot improve these simultaneously saturated bond bounds, including on the periodic ring.
For nonzero field, the spin-wave ground state is the vacuum of all . The inverse Bogoliubov transformation gives and vanishing one-point oscillator averages. Translational invariance therefore gives the depletionRotating back to the physical axes yields, to the retained spin-wave order,The zero transverse components also follow from rotation by about the physical axis in a symmetry-preserving ground state. The nonzero depletion describes zero-point quantum fluctuations: the original boson vacuum is not the ground state because the anomalous terms create pairs. It is nonnegative and must satisfy for the expansion to be reliable. At strong field it tends to zero, with in the infinite-chain limit.
For fixed , the momentum sum has a finite thermodynamic limit obtained by . At zero field the uniform mode already has no oscillator vacuum, as explained in part d. Even after removing that mode, the nonzero modes behave asThus assigning a finite ordered moment by simply setting in the infinite momentum sum is invalid. The divergence indicates failure of this expansion about a fixed planar orientation; it is not a negative physical magnetization. At finite size an exact zero-field state chosen to have definite total has zero planar one-point magnetization by the continuous rotation symmetry. Establishing its full correlations requires a treatment beyond the divergent ordered-state approximation.
The scalar potential is . Completing the square givesThe Hamiltonian density also contains the nonnegative terms . Its lowest-energy configurations therefore have no time or spatial variation and minimize the displayed square. ThusThe minima form a circle of phases. Selecting the real positive representative chooses one vacuum and spontaneously breaks the continuous global symmetry in field theory. The stationarity at is a local maximum of the radial potential, not the ground state.
For low temperature, factor out the largest Boltzmann factor from the dominant eigenvalue:Thus the Helmholtz free energy per site has the expansionDifferentiate at fixed , remembering that . The entropy per site isThe nonzero residual entropy comes from an exponentially large ground-state degeneracy, generated by geometrical frustration. A triangle with antiferromagnetic energy has minimum energy : if , the apex must have the opposite sign; if , either apex sign is permitted. The two all-equal configurations instead have energy . Thus exactly one of a minimum-energy triangle's bonds is frustrated. The bridge can simultaneously minimize its energy at by requiring , where is the next cell's first base spin.
For fixed and , the number of allowed apex choices is therefore two when and one when . The zero-temperature counting transfer matrix on successive first base spins isThe eigenvalues of are and . Dividing by the sites and taking the thermodynamic limit gives , independently confirming the derivative calculation. This does not assert a unique ordered ground state: the extensive choice of frustrated bonds is precisely what leaves entropy at zero temperature. At high temperature, all Ising spins become independent and per site.
With no pairing, the Hamiltonian is diagonal in the fermionic occupation numbers. The Pauli exclusion principle allows each momentum mode to be either empty or occupied once. Without a fixed fermion number constraint, occupying a mode lowers the energy precisely when its single-particle energy is negative. Therefore, with the Fock vacuum, a ground state isChoose a fixed ordering of the fermionic creation operators; changing it alters only the overall phase. Any zero-energy modes may be occupied or empty without changing the ground-state energy.
To identify the occupied modes, complete the square:Here is the dispersion parameter, not inverse temperature. If , every mode has positive energy and the unique ground state is the Fock vacuum, with . If , there are still no negative-energy modes, but have zero energy if they lie on the allowed momentum grid. Each such mode doubles the ground-state degeneracy.
For , defineBoth are positive, and the occupied Fermi sea consists of the two intervals . With , the requested finite-size ground-state energy is explicitlyThe factor two counts opposite momenta. Endpoints are excluded from this sum because they have zero energy; when an endpoint is allowed, its optional occupation adds ground-state degeneracy. A narrow negative-energy interval can contain no allowed finite-size momenta, in which case the sum is empty. The zero-momentum mode is always empty since .
Since every quasiparticle energy is positive, the ground state is the vacuum of all the annihilation operators, including . Its zero-momentum mode is therefore empty. For each positive momentum, the inverse Bogoliubov transformation givesBoth annihilate the normalized pair state . For example, applying produces the two cancelling terms . ThusThe factors have even fermion parity and commute for disjoint momentum pairs. Each normalized factor is a superposition of zero and two fermions, whose pair-occupation probability is . ThereforeThere is no zero-mode contribution. For fixed , the sum converges since .
A normalized simple excited state is for . Its excitation energy is , and its total momentum is : both terms in add momentum . Acting on the pair givesThe affected pair now contains exactly one fermion instead of mean number ; all other pairs are unchanged. ConsequentlyThis is the fermion number of a Bogoliubov excitation. Its change in mean fermion number lies between zero and one for , with the value one at . The Bogoliubov quasiparticle coherently mixes adding a fermion and removing the opposite-momentum fermion; it is not an eigen-excitation of the original fermion number operator. Indeed,so fermion number is not conserved when , while fermion parity is conserved. The generally noninteger change is an expectation value in a coherent paired background, rather than a fractional eigenvalue of the fermion number operator. In the weak-pairing limit at fixed , it tends to one, as expected for an ordinary added fermion.
For one triangle, equal base spins give energy . Their minimum occurs at and is . Opposite base spins give energy , independently of the apex spin. The all-equal configurations have energy .
When , the six configurations with precisely one spin different from the other two all have minimum energy . For a fixed first base spin, there is one minimum choice if the next base spin is the same, and two choices of apex if it is opposite. The ground-configuration counting transfer matrix is thereforeThis ground-state counting of the frustrated sawtooth Ising chain proves the extensive geometric frustration and the residual entropy .
When , . Every triangle must have equal base spins and the opposite apex spin. Shared base spins propagate that choice around the chain, leaving just two global ground states, of energy . Their entropy per spin is .
For couplings favoring ferromagnetism, write , with . Both orientations of an all-equal triangle minimize every bond simultaneously. The common base spins then make the whole chain uniform. There are two global ground states for either or , so no corresponding distinction in residual entropy occurs. This statement assumes all bonds remain nonzero.
Expand around the polarized ground state. With fixed as , the Holstein–Primakoff transformation gives , and . The longitudinal exchange contributesUseThe transverse exchange then gives , and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction gives . Discarding the constant and all interactions yieldsHere periodic boundary conditions make each occur twice in the longitudinal sum. The approximation is the linear spin-wave approximation, controlled by small local magnon occupation compared with .
Choose the unitary discrete Fourier transformThe finite-sum orthogonality identity gives . It also gives . Substituting from solution therefore gives the dispersion relationUsing the opposite sign in the Fourier transform reverses and the sine term together, without changing the spectrum.
For every , so the ground state of this quadratic Hamiltonian is the bosonic vacuum, for every . In the original spin variables it is the fully polarized product state. Its energy is zero after the constant subtraction. Repeating the construction about the fully polarized state describes the other easy-axis sector of the original Hamiltonian.
A one-magnon excitation has energy above the reference ground state. A normalized many-magnon Fock state with occupations has excitation energy , within the dilute regime of the linear spin-wave approximation. The lowest excitation in this sector has the minimum allowed .
