Atomic units 2026-10-18
The convention used here chooses units in which the numerical values of the reduced Planck constant, electron mass, elementary charge and times the vacuum permittivity are one.
Consider an explicitly stipulated dilute independent spin-one-half two-level system with zero applied magnetic field. Each constituent has and , with constant signed gyromagnetic ratio . Ignore interactions and the specimen's own magnetic field. At positive temperature , thermal equilibrium with the rotating lattice gives energy levels . Define the dimensionless variable , where is the reduced Planck constant and is the Boltzmann constant. The partition function and Boltzmann distribution give
Taking the expected value gives
where is number density. This is the rotational version of the independent-moment magnetic response. The angular momentum aligns with positive rotation even when the magnetic moment points oppositely. The probability ratio provides a direct population check of the sign.
For , expand the hyperbolic tangent to obtain
The slope against is positive for either sign of , while the slope against has the sign of . At fixed , reversing reverses both means, and gives zero. At fixed nonzero , the formal limit saturates at ; the linear approximation must not be extrapolated there. At , the response vanishes. These limits describe the toy canonical ensemble, whose equilibration is assumed.
Figure 1. . Original calculated Independent spin Barnett response, with . The left panel reaches the formal saturation limits; the right panel is the extremely small-polarization room-temperature regime. The stipulated inputs describe a toy collection of independent spins; neither panel represents measurements of a ferromagnet or a fit to the gadolinium experiment. Details.
For a numerical example, stipulate , , , and rotation frequency . With , , and , the model gives
These are teaching inputs and calculated outputs, not measured material values. The corresponding internal angular momentum density is . Keeping a rotor at prescribed while its internal angular momentum changes requires the drive to supply the appropriate angular impulse. In an isolated body the mechanical part instead changes oppositely, as in magnetomechanical angular momentum balance. There is no creation of net angular momentum by choosing a rotating frame.
For fixed Electron number , the specified electron degeneracy pressure scales as . Differentiating at fixed low temperature gives the degeneracy-pressure bulk modulus,
A monovalent sample has one conduction Electron per atom. Its carrier density is
using the Avogadro constant . Substitution with reduced Planck constant and electron mass gives
Equivalently, and for this free electron model. This is the assumed electronic contribution, not a calculation of the complete equation of state of real potassium: ionic cohesion and interaction corrections have been excluded as instructed. The supplied pressure is the zero-temperature form, appropriate to leading order for .
For the supplied linear rigid rotor spectrum, sum over every nonnegative integer and include all magnetic substates:
It is convenient to introduce the rotational temperature
so that the first terms are . Here is the moment of inertia and is the reduced Planck constant, as confirmed in the original PDF. The stipulated degeneracies are used as given, without adding nuclear-spin weights or omitting selected values.
A cubic reflecting cavity supports standing waves with positive integer mode indices and wavevector components . A cell in mode space has volume . In the continuum approximation, a spherical shell of radius and thickness has one-eighth of its volume in the positive octant. There are two independent transverse photon polarizations for a generic wavevector. Hence
The photon energy is , so . Therefore
This is the leading bulk density of states, valid when the cavity is large compared with the relevant wavelengths and many modes lie in the counting interval. A finite cavity has a discrete mode spectrum, with boundary corrections beyond this approximation. Modes with vanishing indices require separate boundary counting but do not change the leading term. Here is the reduced Planck constant, as printed in the original PDF; replacing it by would introduce an erroneous factor of .
Use dimensions for mass, length and time. The reduced Planck constant, gravitational constant and speed of light have dimensions
For to have the dimensions of a length, dimensional analysis requires
The first equation gives ; the third gives . Substitution in the second gives . Hence
With , and , the Planck length is
The proposed monomial fixes the dimensionless prefactor to one; dimensional analysis on its own cannot select an arbitrary dimensionless multiplier.
The Time-independent Schrödinger equation is the energy eigenvalue equation for a particle of mass . The Hamiltonian operator is the sum of the kinetic operator and the prescribed potential energy . Here is the reduced Planck constant. A corresponding stationary state is . The Born rule identifies as probability density for a state with wavefunction normalization ; integrating it over an interval gives a position probability. A plane wave scattering state is not a normalizable wavefunction on the whole line, but its probability currents give the reflection and transmission fractions of an incident wave packet.
There is a notation discrepancy in the sources: the original PDF prints an unbarred in the kinetic term, whereas the local TeX uses . The standard physical equation uses the reduced Planck constant , where is the Planck constant; that convention is used below. Reading the printed literally as the Planck constant would scale all lengths in this model by relative to the standard answers, but would leave the amplitude ratios unchanged.
For , both sides allow oscillatory wavefunctions. A classical particle always crosses the potential step and slows because its kinetic energy falls from to . In quantum mechanics there is generally both reflection and transmission even though the particle is above the step. Define the positive wavenumbers
With no wave incident from the right, write
A finite potential step with constant mass makes both the wavefunction and its first derivative continuous. The two boundary conditions at are
Solving gives the reflected and transmitted wavefunctions
For the specified Electron energies, , so the relative probability amplitudes are
The transmitted probability amplitude exceeding one is compatible with conservation of quantum probability, since the outgoing speed is smaller. In fact the probability current gives
These are the quantum reflection probability and transmission probability, which must be distinguished from the requested relative amplitudes.