Differentiate the Helmholtz free energy at fixed couplings. With from solution, the entropy per spin isIt is particularly useful to writeAt , this is , so . For fixed , the first exponential dominates alone, giving . Hence the residual entropy isThe finite positive difference must be kept fixed in the second limit; taking it to zero first gives the other answer.
At high temperature, and , whenceAll configurations become equally probable because their Boltzmann factors tend to one. The two available states per spin, rather than the coupling values, determine this entropy.
The Holstein–Primakoff transformation maps the finite spin basis to bosonic Fock states with . Thus is the fully polarized reference state, and creating a boson lowers by one. The physical subspace has the Holstein–Primakoff occupation constraint , not the whole infinite oscillator Hilbert space.
The specified ordering of the square root givesThese are the exact spin ladder operator matrix elements; in particular, the lowering amplitude vanishes at . The underlying oscillator obeys its usual canonical commutation relation on the enlarged space, while the spin operators preserve the constrained physical subspace. Projecting the oscillator operators themselves to a finite space would change their commutator at its upper endpoint.
Expanding converts an ordered spin problem to approximately free magnons, with interactions in higher orders of . Two complications are the nonpolynomial, order-sensitive square roots, which generate interacting bosons, and loss of the occupation bound when a truncated expansion uses the full bosonic Fock space. Large depletion, high temperature, or soft modes near a phase transition can invalidate the assumption even when is large.
Use thermal de Broglie wavelength and spacing . Degeneracy onset from thermal wavelength occurs atThe numerical factor depends on the convention for a typical momentum, but the scale does not. For fermions the Fermi temperature gives a comparable scale for spin degeneracy two.
Representative estimates, with the assumed densities stated explicitly, are:
| System | Assumed number density | Assumed particle mass | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conduction electrons | |||
| Dilute heavy atomic cloud | |||
| Neutrons at nuclear-scale density |
Here is the atomic mass constant. Thus the characteristic orders are for electrons, sub-microkelvin for a dilute heavy atomic gas, and for neutrons. There is no density-independent quantum-degeneracy temperature for atomic gases: for example, taking and mass instead gives about . These are illustrative input estimates, not values supplied by the paper. Denser neutron-star cores require relativistic and interaction corrections; the estimate identifies the degeneracy scale rather than a precise stellar temperature.
Let . Each independent fermion orbital is either empty or occupied once, so its grand partition factor is . Multiplying factors and taking the logarithm givesSince , this is the requested form. Spin or other orbital degeneracy is already included in .
For the Fermi-window convolution of the grand potential, defineDirect differentiation gives . The supplied PDF hint has the opposite sign; using that sign would contradict its grand-potential formula. Integrating twice with and vanishing upper boundary terms,At zero temperature , confirming .
Use the source's implicit unit normalization of the constant density of states; restoring a constant baseline multiplies the following potentials by . For the sinusoidal density of states, direct integration givesPhysical nonnegative density of states requires . Write and . The Fermi windowis even, with full-line moments , and . The last integral follows, for example, by expanding on into its alternating exponential series. When , extending the lower integration limit to introduces only exponentially small band-edge corrections. The supplied Fourier transform givesThe odd sine term vanishes. Substitution provesThe thermal damping of a sinusoidal density of states is therefore in the full oscillatory potential. The requested ratio instead concerns the thermal change . Its oscillatory thermal-change amplitude ratio isFor positive it decreases smoothly from the limit to zero:At exactly both thermal changes vanish; the quoted value is their limiting ratio. The amplitude is the envelope in chemical potential. At a particular fixed , the signed contribution ratio has in place of ; at an oscillation node the actual oscillatory contribution is zero. The large- behaviour still requires , so the useful range is .
For two localized energy levels with degeneracies , let . Canonical equilibrium givesHere is the total upper-level occupation probability and are per unit. For nondegenerate levels the entropy rises from zero to , while the heat capacity vanishes at both low and high temperatures and has a Schottky maximum near . A spin one-half in a field, or a localized defect with two configurations, supplies an example. Higher levels must be thermally inaccessible; unequal degeneracies change the populations and peak. Distinguishable localized units have total partition function , unlike a gas of indistinguishable particles sharing just two orbitals.
For the magnetic atom, choose level labels with , . Put . Its partition function and exact entropy of a finite magnetic multiplet areThe ratio form has removable limit . Since is a function of only, it depends on field and temperature solely through . For fixed at small , symmetry removes the odd powers and the supplied sum of givesFor large , the expansion requires , not merely .
Two-level heat and magnetic entropy
. Original Schottky heat-capacity curve and exact finite-spin entropies show the entropy deficit removed by isothermal magnetization. Quadratic high-temperature expansions are shown only over a limited small-field interval. Details.For demagnetization with a linear-heat-capacity load, integrate its specified :Isothermal magnetization at removes spin entropy; the bath receives the corresponding heat. During the following reversible, thermally isolated demagnetization, it is the combined entropy of spins and load that stays constant. At the minimum-field endpoint , the ideal independent spins reach . ThereforeThe bracket is the initial magnetic entropy deficit. The PDF's intermediate equality uses the initial entropy itself instead; with its preceding definition of , that equality omits the maximum-entropy term. The corrected balance recovers its final temperature formula:Without the small-field expansion, the exact independent-spin prediction is . As a check, zero initial field gives zero entropy deficit and no cooling. The incorrectly printed intermediate balance would fail this check.
The result requires the load law throughout the temperature interval, hence ; a small initial Zeeman splitting, quantitatively ; positive final temperature; negligible additional heat capacities and heat leaks; thermal equilibration between subsystems; and a reversible sweep slow enough to maintain equilibrium. A negative extrapolated temperature is a breakdown of this approximation, not a cooling prediction. Spins alone would keep fixed, but the attached load changes that adiabat by transferring entropy to them as it cools.
Interactions invalidate the product of independent one-site partition functions. The entropy must be computed from the many-body energy spectrum or a justified interacting approximation. Correlations and possible magnetic ordering introduce an interaction scale and can remove the independent-spin entropy available for cooling near zero field. Internal fields and ordering commonly limit practical demagnetization. The detailed correction and any residual entropy depend on the interaction Hamiltonian, dimensionality and frustration; neither a universal ordering temperature nor a numerical final-temperature correction is specified here.
Let and choose the nondegenerate energy levels as 0 and . For N independent identical units, ; set N=1 for a single two-level system. Differentiating its logarithm givesAt low temperature, and : the upper level is frozen out. At high temperature, the two levels approach equal populations, giving while . The energy therefore rises monotonically to a plateau, while the heat capacity has a Schottky peak:Unequal degeneracies would change the populations and peak; the usual equal-degeneracy model is stated here. Shifting both energy levels changes the energy baseline but not heat capacity.
Original equal-degeneracy two-level internal-energy and heat-capacity curves, with the high-temperature plateau and Schottky peak marked
. Details. Use a three-dimensional ideal gas at the same number density n for both isotopes. An unpolarized helium-3 gas has spin degeneracy two, henceHelium-4 has a single spin state, and the ideal Bose-gas saturation condition givesEliminating n, using and , yieldsThe fermionic spin degeneracy must be included. This is an ideal-gas estimate; strong interactions in liquid helium prevent identifying it with an exact experimental transition temperature.
Equipartition gives mean energy for each independent quadratic term in a classical canonical Hamiltonian. For example, and each contribute this amount in a harmonic oscillator. It is a thermal average, not an instantaneous equality; constraints, nonquadratic terms or quantum level spacings large compared with require a different calculation.
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem connects equilibrium fluctuations with the dissipative part of linear response. If an applied force couples as , use response to and define the two-sided angular-frequency spectrum . The classical relation isFor a viscously damped particle, , the corresponding white-noise force satisfies . Noise replenishes energy lost by friction; their strengths cannot be varied independently at fixed equilibrium temperature.
Electrically, the one-sided voltage-noise spectrum per hertz of an equilibrium resistor is . A capacitor in parallel filters it toThe same equilibrium voltage variance follows from equipartition. Increasing R makes the spectrum taller and narrower without changing its integrated area. This thermodynamic connection between dissipative conductance and thermal electrical fluctuations is the content of the classical noise calculation.[ref]
Thermal Agitation of Electric Charge in Conductors by Harry Nyquist. 1928, abstract: equilibrium thermodynamic and statistical calculation of thermal electromotive force
A black body absorbs incident electromagnetic radiation and, in equilibrium, emits a spectrum determined by temperature alone. A cavity with a small aperture approximates this ideal. Photon number is not conserved in thermal equilibrium, so its chemical potential is zero. Combining the Bose occupation with the two-polarization electromagnetic mode density gives the spectral energy densityChanging variable to shows directly why the total energy density is proportional to :Three powers of T arise from the number of thermally populated modes and one from their characteristic energy. Isotropic radiation incident on a surface has outward hemispherical flux , givingThe factor 1/4 is the hemispherical angular average; multiplying energy density by c alone would overcount. The spectrum's frequency scale grows with T. Classical equipartition over all modes would instead produce the Rayleigh-Jeans ultraviolet divergence; the Planck occupation suppresses high-frequency modes. Real materials can have wavelength-dependent emissivity, and a body's net radiative exchange also includes absorbed environmental radiation.
Original Planck energy spectra for three relative temperatures, showing the shift to higher frequencies and the growth of the integrated energy as temperature to the fourth power
. Details. An equation of state relates equilibrium pressure, temperature and density. The ideal-gas form neglects intermolecular forces and excluded volume. A low-density real-gas expansion iswhere the virial coefficients encode interaction effects and generally depend on temperature.
A simple phenomenological example is the molar Van der Waals equationHere v is molar volume, b represents excluded volume and the attractive interaction lowers pressure through a. Its dilute expansion gives . It recovers the ideal-gas limit but is not a quantitatively universal equation for all real gases.
Below its critical temperature, the raw isotherm contains a region with , corresponding to negative isothermal compressibility and mechanical instability. Equilibrium phase separation replaces that segment by a coexistence pressure satisfying equal chemical potentials, equivalently the Maxwell equal-area construction. The critical point follows from :The distinction between an unstable homogeneous branch and a stable two-phase state is essential when interpreting a real-gas equation of state.
Write . For one nondegenerate fermionic quantum state, the allowed occupations 0 and 1 give . For a bosonic state, summing all nonnegative occupations gives , requiring or . Differentiating the logarithm,The interacting point defect has two distinct spin states, not one fermionic state. Its four microstates have grand-canonical weights , with . The first two single-electron weights are separate up/down spin possibilities; the double state has one electron of each spin. ThusFor , and . The sketch is a single smooth step from 0 to 2, centred on , where . As its width tends to zero.
For positive U with , the lowest grand energies are successively , and . Away from the two crossings,Finite temperature smooths each step over an energy range of order . Near the lower step double occupation is exponentially suppressed, so . Near the upper step put and neglect the empty state, giving . Spin degeneracy shifts the half-step positions to and .
For a grand-canonical probability , differentiation gives . Multiplying by and summing provesFor this defect, direct state counting givesAt , and thereforeThe same limit gives : empty, up and down states have equal weights, while the double state is suppressed. Replacing this degeneracy by a two-outcome equal-weight model would incorrectly give variance at this chemical potential.
Across the full chemical-potential range the variance has two well-separated narrow peaks and tends to zero on the 0, 1 and 2 plateaux. The limiting shapes are near the lower step and near the upper one. Each peak has height , at the shifted half-step position; the variance at the unshifted crossings is instead .
For one oscillator, set . Its quantum-oscillator energy and heat capacity areAt low temperature, and : excitations freeze out but zero-point energy remains. At high temperature, and , recovering equipartition. The zero-point term does not contribute to heat capacity.
Original quantum-oscillator energy and heat-capacity curves, with zero-point energy, low-temperature freeze-out and classical high-temperature limits
. Details. Using and the stated Maxwell relation, interchange derivatives within a smooth single phase:Therefore depends only on temperature for the given temperature-linear equation of state. It need not be constant in temperature.
At , Pauli exclusion restricts thermally changed occupations to an energy interval of order about the Fermi energy. The affected fraction is of order ; their typical excitation energy is of order , so the thermal energy correction is proportional to and the heat capacity is linear in .
More precisely, with the total density of one-particle states per unit energy, including spin,For a three-dimensional ideal gas with quadratic dispersion, , henceThe fixed-particle-number Sommerfeld expansion gives . The temperature dependence of the chemical potential must be included when obtaining this expression; holding it artificially fixed changes the intermediate energy correction.
For one three-dimensional quadratic branch, the density of states per unit volume isWith , changing integration variable to givesA degeneracy factor multiplies both densities if additional equivalent branches are present. The first expression is the noncondensed density: a macroscopically occupied ground state must be counted separately.
Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when the excited states can no longer hold all particles and the ground-state occupation becomes macroscopic. At fixed total density,For field-induced triplon condensation, write , so . At fixed reference , the three requested dispersions have gaps , and zero respectively. Their curvature is unchanged. Because the actual thermodynamic chemical potential is zero, the Bose distribution requires . At , the minimum reaches zero and the noncondensed population saturates, permitting macroscopic occupation.
For the triplon condensation field scaling, the critical density at onset is . ThereforeThe low-temperature phase boundary rises from ; the condensed phase lies on the higher-field side.
Original shifted-parabola triplon dispersions and low-temperature field–temperature phase diagram; model choices are dimensionless and illustrative
. Details. For , simply continuing the gap below zero would give unphysical Bose occupations. For the condensate density in a shifted-parabola triplon model, added condensate density keeps the minimum at zero: . At fixed temperature this giveswith below onset. At zero temperature it becomes within that model.
This prefactor is conditional on continuing the stated single-density mean-field shift into the condensed phase. A microscopic interacting Bose condensate has collective Bogoliubov excitations , with , which are linear at small . The normal-state shift alone does not fix the condensed interaction closure or identify with . The gap closes and the condensate density grows linearly with excess field in the simple mean-field description; the detailed collective dispersion needs that additional interaction model. A dilute-boson treatment of field-induced magnetic ordering makes this normal/condensed distinction explicitly.[ref]
Use for molar volume to distinguish it from the fluctuating parcel volume below. The equation is . The parameter models excluded volume, while models the reduction in pressure from attractive interactions.
Below the critical temperature, a raw isotherm has a loop. The positive-slope segment is mechanically unstable and surrounding metastable portions do not give the stable equilibrium mixture. Replace the loop by a constant coexistence pressure satisfying the Maxwell equal-area condition,The endpoints are liquid and vapour molar volumes; intermediate mean volumes correspond to phase mixtures with changing proportions. Above the critical temperature, liquid-like and gas-like states connect continuously without a coexistence plateau.
Original reduced van der Waals isotherms with computed Maxwell coexistence plateaus and the pressure–temperature coexistence curve ending at the critical point
. Details. In the pressure-temperature diagram, the liquid-vapour coexistence line ends at the critical point. Below it, the low-pressure side is vapour and the high-pressure side liquid. “Gas” conventionally denotes the region above the critical temperature, where compression alone cannot cross a liquid-vapour transition. The model has no solid phase.
The critical isotherm has an inflection: . Thuswhich giveFor fluctuations about a stable equilibrium value , the system plus reservoir has probability proportional to . Expanding availability,gives a Gaussian distribution and, to this order, withThis requires positive curvature and sufficiently small fluctuations; it is not exact when higher-order terms matter.
The whole cylinder's volume is fixed. For the volume fluctuations of a small fluid parcel, interpret the small quantity as a material parcel containing moles, whose volume can fluctuate against the much larger remainder. Its mean volume at the critical density is . At fixed temperature its availability is , soOn the critical isochore, approached from ,ConsequentlyEquivalently, , with . The mean-field variance diverges as , so its critical exponent is ; the root-mean-square fluctuation has exponent . A fixed spatial observation box instead has number fluctuations, not fluctuating geometric volume. Finite size and non-Gaussian terms cut off the literal divergence; the approximation fails exactly at the critical point.
Differentiate the Euler relation for a single-component simple compressible system:The thermodynamic fundamental relation for the same system is . Subtraction givesDividing by , with and , proves the Gibbs-Duhem equationThe underlying Euler relation assumes extensive bulk thermodynamics and no additional work coordinates. The result says that the intensive quantities are constrained; the chemical potential cannot be varied independently of temperature and pressure within one homogeneous phase.
Let denote the fluctuating microscopic energy and its mean, at fixed . In a canonical ensemble with ,Since , this givesHere denotes an energy fluctuation about the mean, as in the question. The relation is not restricted to ideal gases when the Hamiltonian operator has no explicit temperature dependence. Alternatively, the stated equilibrium free-energy curvature gives a Gaussian energy weight proportional to , with the same variance.
For the relative energy fluctuation of a monatomic ideal gas, and , henceTaking room conditions as approximately K and Pa, with m, givesThe mean energy is about J and its standard deviation about J. The tiny relative fluctuation explains why macroscopic equilibrium internal energy behaves as a sharply defined thermodynamic quantity. The estimate uses a thermal reservoir, not a particle reservoir; allowing itself to fluctuate changes the relevant fluctuation problem.
A non-ideal gas departs from because interactions and finite particle size affect its pressure. At sufficiently low number density , the virial expansion separates these corrections:The second virial coefficient has dimensions of volume per particle, while has dimensions of volume squared. These are density-series coefficients, not the coefficients of a pressure-series expansion with the same names.
For classical particles interacting through a pair potential ,Repulsion contributes positively and attraction negatively. A hard core of diameter gives , four times the geometric volume of one sphere. The factor reflects the volume excluded to the centre of a second particle together with pair counting; it is not simply the occupied geometric volume.
Expanding the Van der Waals equation at givesThe virial coefficients of the van der Waals gas are therefore and . The Boyle temperature, , makes the leading correction vanish, but does not remove the higher coefficients or turn the gas exactly ideal. More realistic potentials give temperature-dependent higher coefficients that need not equal the van der Waals values.
A useful measurement is a sequence of dilute isothermal pressure–volume observations. Plotting against exposes as the zero-density intercept and as its initial slope. Control temperature and density calibration, check equilibration and adsorption on the container walls, and vary the fitted density interval to test truncation error. One measured virial coefficient cannot uniquely reconstruct the pair potential. Near coexistence or a critical point a short density series may fail, and at quantum-degenerate densities exchange statistics add corrections even without interactions.
Bose-Einstein condensation is macroscopic occupation of the lowest one-particle state. It is a change in occupation statistics, not ordinary liquid formation and not a requirement that all atoms occupy one spatial point. For ideal bosons,Set the lowest one-particle energy to zero. Then , and the population of excited states in a uniform three-dimensional box isHere . As approaches zero, the excited-state population saturates at . Any excess particles occupy the ground state. In the thermodynamic limit,Thus the onset occurs when the thermal de Broglie wavelength is comparable to the mean interparticle spacing. At finite , the chemical potential remains slightly below the ground-state energy; setting it equal to zero is a thermodynamic-limit statement.
The 1995 rubidium experiment used magnetic confinement and evaporative cooling of atoms. Absorption images after trap manipulation revealed a narrow, anisotropically expanding component superposed on the broader thermal distribution; the new component grew as cooling proceeded. The thermal component supplied an internal comparison through the same imaging optics. Trap decompression and release geometry mattered, and finite imaging resolution and interactions limited direct comparison with an ideal-gas ground state.[ref]
Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Atomic Vapor by M. H. Anderson and others. Science 269, pp. 198–201, experimental preparation and velocity distributions
A narrow cloud alone is not sufficient evidence. One should check its emergence across a controlled cooling sequence, atom-number and temperature calibration, the thermal background and the predicted expansion anisotropy. These are tests of an occupation transition rather than a simple focusing artifact. The box formula above is not the exact critical-temperature or condensate-fraction formula for the trapped experiment: the trap changes the density of states, and interactions also matter. Condensation and superfluid response are related but distinct properties; the former definition is ground-state occupation.









