3
votes
2answers
189 views

Boundary conditions for crystals

As students on solid state physics, we are all taught to use the periodic boundary condition, taking 1D as an example: $\psi(x)=\psi(x+L)$ where $L$ is the length of the 1D crystal. My question is: ...
6
votes
2answers
157 views

Effect of boundary conditions on partition functions

While computing partition functions in statistical mechanics models (say) on a 2d lattice one usually makes use of "circular boundary conditions" which thus gives the lattice topology of a torus. It ...