A constant displacement proportional to leaves the velocities unchanged and changes by zero. It is therefore a continuous symmetry of the Lagrangian. The generalized momentum components are
Noether's theorem gives the conserved quantity
A direct check using the Euler-Lagrange equations is
The normalization of a symmetry generator is arbitrary. One can take the transformation parameter to have length units and dimensionless, giving the units of momentum. Alternatively, for the paper's convention with dimensionless parameter and length-valued , use ; the conserved quantity is then . The conserved content is identical.
The special relativity expression for momentum is , with Lorentz factor . Equal speeds imply equal Lorentz factors, so the pion and proton momenta are in the ratio of their rest masses:
The common dimensionless product is , giving and .
Write the incident and scattered photon energies as and . Conservation of relativistic energy gives the recoiling electron energy . By momentum conservation, its momentum is the difference of the two photon momenta; hence
Insert these into the relativistic energy-momentum relation for the electron:
Expanding and cancelling terms gives
Since , the Compton scattering formula follows:
The scale is the electron Compton wavelength. At , : there is no energy or momentum transfer in this ideal forward limit, so the electron remains at rest. At , the wavelength shift is maximal:
The electron gains its largest kinetic energy, , and recoils forward while the photon reverses direction.
The diagram makes the remaining distance to the wall: decreases from to . With the endpoint condition , integrating the supplied mass gradient gives
Assume escaping sand has the same horizontal velocity as the bucket at release. There is then no horizontal recoil: the momentum flux of the outgoing sand cancels the contribution to the bucket's momentum derivative. The variable-mass system equation is therefore
Set , the speed towards the wall. Since , the initial condition gives
Consequently the remaining sand has kinetic energy
In terms of , . Its derivative is and its second derivative is , giving
The magnitude of the remaining sand's momentum is
It is easier to maximize its square, . Its derivative is , giving the unique interior maximum
Both kinetic energy and momentum tend to zero at , even though the idealized speed diverges. There is no finite-mass bucket left at the endpoint, so that divergence signals the limit of the idealization.
The leaking bucket under constant tension has : the kinetic energy maximum is closer to the wall. As the bucket loses mass, its increasing speed continues to boost after has begun to fall. Equivalently, and , so kinetic energy has the stronger dependence on the growing speed. The work is shared between the remaining sand and the sand already lost; it is not all the bucket's instantaneous kinetic energy.
Take upward velocity as positive, and let be the rearward rocket exhaust speed. During , the ejected parcel has mass and laboratory velocity to first order. The momentum change of the rocket and this parcel equals the gravitational impulse:
Discarding the second-order product gives the vertical rocket equation
With and , integration for free flight starting from rest at gives
The logarithmic term is the ideal Tsiolkovsky rocket equation contribution; is the gravity loss. Immediate upward departure requires positive initial acceleration, or
At exact equality the initial acceleration is zero, but further burning reduces the weight and permits departure immediately thereafter. If departure is allowed to be delayed while fuel burns on the pad, the condition is instead at some time before burnout. With final rocket dry mass , any powered departure before burnout requires ; the free-flight formula then starts at the actual departure time with , giving .
For the specified data, the initial mass includes the payload. The rocket fuel fraction gives
The payload is already part of the final mass; it is not the entire rocket dry mass and must not be added a second time. Here , well below the stated rocket exhaust speed, so departure is immediate. The burnout speed is
This is the speed at burnout. Subsequent motion under the assumed uniform gravity has .
For a plane electromagnetic wave with linear polarization, write and . The Poynting vector is instantaneous energy flux:
The light intensity is its cycle average, not its peak:
An incident electromagnetic wave transports longitudinal momentum per energy . Perfect reflection back along the incident direction reverses that momentum, transferring to the mirror. Dividing by illuminated area and time gives the mean radiation pressure
Here denotes the incident travelling wave. The average net Poynting vector of the incident-plus-reflected standing wave is zero, although its radiation pressure is nonzero.
Let be the drop in electric potential along the positive electric charge's path. By conservation of energy, , so the nonrelativistic exit speed is . Apply a uniform magnetic field perpendicular to the incident velocity and to the desired orbital plane. The magnetic Lorentz force is perpendicular to the velocity, does no work, and supplies the centripetal force:
For example, and give initial deflection along for positive . Reversing the magnetic field reverses the bending. A uniform electric field alone would give constant acceleration and a parabolic path, not uniform circular motion. The displayed result assumes ; the exact relativistic momentum relation would give .
For a sinusoidal plane electromagnetic wave in vacuum, write the maximum electric field as . The magnetic field maximum is , so the cycle-averaged Poynting vector magnitude, or light intensity, is
Each photon carries energy , where is the Planck constant. Therefore the photon number flux density, namely the number per unit normal area per unit time, is
Multiplying by an illuminated normal area gives the photon arrival rate. Each absorbed photon transfers momentum at normal incidence, giving the radiation pressure on a perfectly absorbing surface
These are time-averaged quantities. At oblique angle of incidence , the normal radiation pressure is ; the simple displayed expression assumes normal incidence.
For a time-independent Hamiltonian operator, a symmetry operator satisfies , or . Thus applying to an energy eigenstate preserves its energy. Commuting Hermitian observables can be diagonalized within each degenerate energy eigenspace, allowing states to be labelled by symmetry quantum numbers.
A continuous unitary symmetry has Hermitian generator . Differentiating the invariance condition gives . The Heisenberg equation of motion then yields
when has no explicit time dependence. spatial translations connect to momentum conservation, rotations to angular-momentum conservation, and time-translation invariance to energy conservation. A central potential energy conserves all components of angular momentum, but they cannot all be assigned sharp simultaneous values because they do not commute; are a compatible choice. Discrete reflection symmetry gives parity labels without a continuously variable generator. A quantum degeneracy can be protected by a symmetry, but a quantum degeneracy alone does not identify its physical origin.
In Compton scattering, a photon transfers energy and momentum to an initially stationary, approximately free electron. With incident and scattered wavelengths and photon deflection angle , momentum conservation gives
Combine this with to obtain
The photon loses energy to electron recoil; the shift is independent of incident wavelength in this free-electron model and is largest at backscattering. At energies comparable with atomic binding, initial electron motion, binding and coherent scattering from the atom require additional treatment. Classical elastic scattering from a fixed charge alone does not produce this recoil wavelength shift.
In Arthur Holly Compton's spectral test, molybdenum-target X-rays scattered from graphite at were compared with the primary spectrum using the same slits, crystal and tube potential energy. A calcite crystal resolved the shifted line by Bragg's law; lines on both sides established angular zero. The crystal glancing angle on the plotted axis differs from the photon scattering angle. The compared curves had different intensity scales, and the paper did not directly observe the recoil electrons in this X-ray test. These controls support the wavelength comparison without converting it into a direct recoil-track measurement.[ref]
For observables with finite variances, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle gives ; in particular . It concerns the spreads of measurements in a prepared state, rather than only disturbance by a measuring device. Identical integer-spin particles have symmetric full states and Bose-Einstein statistics; half-integer-spin particles have antisymmetric full states and Fermi-Dirac statistics. The latter imply Pauli exclusion from one complete single-particle state, including spin.
Inside an infinite square well, solutions satisfying both zero boundary conditions are
with zero wavefunction outside. For the ground state, direct integration gives
The infinite-well ground-state uncertainty product follows:
The ground state is not a minimum-uncertainty Gaussian. Here momentum variance is the usual kinetic-momentum second moment of the confined state; the hard-wall momentum operator has domain subtleties that do not alter this kinetic-energy result.
For spin degeneracy in filling a one-dimensional well, let and assume the spin levels are degenerate and available. Four spin-zero bosons all occupy the lowest orbital, giving . Four spin- fermions fill two spin states in each of , giving . Spin- fermions have four spin projections, so all four can occupy in different complete states, giving . These fillings do not impose full spin polarization.
For a photon scattering through angle from a free electron initially at rest, conserve energy and momentum. Eliminating the final electron momentum by its relativistic energy relation gives
or . The recoil electron gains kinetic energy . The shift is zero forward, one electron Compton wavelength at , and twice that wavelength backward.
Compton's X-ray scattering measurements compared scattered spectra at different angles and identified an angle-dependent shifted component. This supports photon momentum and inelastic recoil, beyond the unchanged-frequency prediction of classical elastic Thomson scattering. Bound electrons and coherent scattering can also produce an unshifted component; initial momentum and binding broaden or modify the ideal free-electron result. Treating an electron as initially free and stationary is therefore a kinematic approximation appropriate when the relevant photon transfer dominates binding scales.[ref]
In a periodic crystal potential, atomic levels broaden into bands of allowed bloch states. Coupling between states of the same symmetry opens avoided crossings, including Bragg-coupled states in the nearly free-electron picture. Bonding and antibonding combinations provide a complementary tight-binding picture. A semiconductor has a filled valence band and an empty conduction band at zero temperature separated by a forbidden energy interval; thermal excitation, light and doping provide mobile electrons and holes. The gap depends on the crystal's periodic potential, bonding and symmetry, not on a classical collision barrier. In a direct gap, the relevant extrema coincide in wavevector.
For the stated parabolic edges, take and . Negligible photon momentum and no phonon make the transition nearly vertical in versus . parabolic-band optical energy sharing divides the excess photon energy in inverse proportion to the effective masses:
Thus the initial and final electron energies, relative to the valence-band maximum, are
Their difference is . The selected is about ; either sign gives the same energy in this symmetric approximation.
A shallow donor supplies an electron in a screened impurity potential, so its localized level lies just below the conduction edge. A shallow acceptor binds a hole and has an electron-occupation level just above the valence edge; thermal ionization supplies mobile holes. The level positions are measured relative to the relevant band edge, and deep impurities need not obey this hydrogenic approximation.
For the supplied bound-carrier mass and unit effective ionic charge, dielectric screening and effective mass change the hydrogen binding energy to
This corresponds to and an effective Bohr radius about . The binding is shallow compared with the band gap and typical atomic binding. Trivalent denotes chemical valence, not an unscreened hydrogenic charge of three. An acceptor physically binds a hole; the question's stated is used as its stipulated bound-carrier mass rather than silently replacing it by the separate band-edge .
Figure 1.
Original direct-gap vertical transition with mass-dependent energy sharing, and separate schematic shallow donor and acceptor levels
. Details.
A three-phonon normal process conserves crystal wavevector without a reciprocal-lattice shift, . An Umklapp process instead has
The crystal can absorb the reciprocal-lattice momentum; after reduction to the first Brillouin zone the phonon drift transporting heat is relaxed. A normal process redistributes phonons while preserving their total crystal momentum, so it is not by itself the same resistive mechanism. energy must also be conserved in either process.
At low temperature, large-wavevector phonons are rare, suppressing Umklapp scattering. Boundary and defect scattering then limit the mean free path; with a nearly constant boundary-limited path, grows as . As temperature increases, heat capacity rises but Umklapp scattering shortens , often producing a electrical conductivity maximum. At sufficiently high temperature a simple anharmonic model has nearly constant and , giving . These are regime estimates, not a universal law for every material or size.
Apply the radial momentum operator to a smooth radial test function. More generally , giving the first two labelled identities. Expanding the square gives the third:
The kinetic-energy decomposition is . A central potential commutes with and , so choose simultaneous angular eigenfunctions , with and . The radial Hamiltonian consequently has the stated centrifugal term. The radial inner product uses measure ; adjoints below are taken on compatible regular bound-state domains. The formal radial momentum is not thereby asserted to be a self-adjoint observable on a half-line.
Set , and . Since formally and ,
The hydrogen radial Hamiltonian factorization follows by matching the Coulomb coefficient, which fixes the Bohr radius
For the second pair of labelled relations, the opposite product changes the sign of , hence
Using in the factorization then gives
This Coulomb angular-momentum intertwining means applying to an energy eigenstate either gives zero or an eigenstate of with the same energy. For a normalized negative-energy state,
At fixed this would become negative if raising continued indefinitely. The bound-state ladder termination by norm positivity occurs at some with , giving
The terminating radial function is proportional to , regular and normalizable; adjoint intertwiners generate lower values at fixed . Positive-energy scattering states are not subject to this terminating negative-energy argument. Here is the mass in the supplied Hamiltonian; including nuclear motion replaces it by the reduced mass.
A continuous symmetry is represented by a unitary family with a self-adjoint conserved generator of a continuous quantum symmetry . If for all , differentiating gives . Thus, for no explicit time dependence,
translation invariance conserves the corresponding momentum component; rotational invariance about one axis conserves that angular-momentum component. A central potential conserves all components and , but the components need not be simultaneously measurable because . Time-translation invariance of a closed system gives a time-independent Hamiltonian and energy conservation.
A discrete symmetry need not have a continuously varying generator. For parity, lets stationary states be chosen even or odd, and preserves parity sectors. symmetry does not force every state to be an eigenstate of its conserved observable. Explicit time dependence adds to the conservation equation, and an external symmetry-breaking potential generally permits exchange with the environment. Degenerate eigenspaces require choosing a compatible common basis rather than assuming every eigenvector already diagonalizes every commuting operator.
Confinement to length gives a momentum scale by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Using the alpha-particle mass , its speed scale is . Counting encounters with either wall,
This is an order-of-magnitude collision-rate estimate, not a classical trajectory of a stationary quantum state. Taking , a different geometric interpretation of the well size, or successive returns to the same wall changes the coefficient by factors of order unity; the robust scale is .
For a normalized top-hat wavefunction of width centred at zero, inside the interval and zero outside. Its position distribution has and . With Fourier convention , the momentum amplitude is
The momentum density has long oscillatory tails. Consequently diverges: the ideal discontinuous top hat has infinite r.m.s. momentum spread. Its symmetric momentum density has formal principal-value mean zero, but no finite absolute first moment either. The finite-variance form is therefore not saturated and cannot be evaluated using the width of the central diffraction lobe as .
The first momentum zeros occur at , showing the inverse-width scale. Smoothing the edges sufficiently gives a finite momentum variance and restores the ordinary finite-variance uncertainty comparison; sharper edges require larger high-momentum components. It is the ideal jump, not a violation of the uncertainty principle, that causes the divergence.
Figure 1.
Original top-hat position density and sinc-squared momentum density; the latter has tails giving divergent momentum variance
. Details.
Differentiating the expectation value and using and gives
The second term means explicit operator time dependence, distinct from the state's evolution.
The commutator product rule follows by adding and subtracting :
For the mathematical induction step, let and use . The case is immediate. If , then
Thus the claimed identity holds for every positive integer. Commutation of with is not needed for this particular step. This is the central-commutator differentiation rule. Termwise application to a convergent power series, on a common domain where the operations are justified, gives
For position and momentum, . Hence , and . Substitution gives Ehrenfest theorem:
The mean momentum changes by the mean force. It does not follow for a general nonlinear Potential energy that : a closed classical trajectory for the mean position requires an additional condition, such as a quadratic Potential energy or a sufficiently localized wave packet.