# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged perturbation-theory

20

An orbit is stable because of conservation of angular momentum. Suppose we start with an object in an exactly circular orbit and slow it down slightly. That means it is moving at less than orbital velocity so it starts to fall inwards. However as its distance to the Sun decreases the tangential component of its velocity has to increase to conserve angular ...

17

This was something that confused me for awhile as well until I found this great set of notes: homepages.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~helling/classical_fields.pdf Let me just briefly summarize what's in there. The free Klein-Gordon field satisfies the field equation $(\partial_{\mu} \partial^{\mu} +m^2) \phi(x) = 0$ the most general solution to this equation ...

14

First, just to be sure about the answers to this particular problem: the eigenvalues of the $4\times 4$ matrix are $$0,\quad U\quad {\rm and}\quad U/2\pm \sqrt{(U/2)^2+4t^2}$$ When expanded to the first nontrivial order, the last two eigenvalues are $$0 - \frac{4t^2}U \quad {\rm and} \quad U+\frac{4t^2}U.$$ Note that the corrections to the energy arise ...

13

I) The lowering of the ground state energy is a special case of the more general phenomenon of level repulsion (because the excited energy levels by definition must be larger than the ground state energy). II) Level repulsion is not just a quantum phenomenon. It also happens for purely classical systems, e.g. two coupled oscillators, as mentioned in the ...

12

The criterion you mention is roughly the threshold for the formation of the Coulomb gap in the Hubbard model or the local moment in the Anderson model. It is a common break-down region for many approaches starting from one of the limits (insulator/local moments versus conductor/mixed valence). For perturbation theory in $U$, see the PRB 36, 675 (1986) by ...

10

I've been thinking about divergent series on and off, so maybe I could chip in. Consider a sequence of numbers (in an arbitrary field, e.g. real numbers) $\{a_n\}$. You may ask about the sum of terms of this sequence, i. e. $\sum a_n$. If the limit $\lim_{N\rightarrow\infty} \sum^N |a_n|$ exists then the series is absolutely convergent and you may talk ...

10

Diagram machinery works also for perturbation theory in classical statistical mechanics and classical field theories. Generally, various kinds of diagrams constitute a pictorial way of talking about tensor products and their contractions while hiding the multi-linear algebra from the layman. In the simplest case, vertices (or blobs) represent vectors, ...

9

The in- and out-states are free states, and the S-matrix definition of Mandl and Shaw is perfectly valid (with an appropriate notion of Texp). It is the one used in rigorous mathematical physics; see the treatise by Reed and Simon. It is also the one from which the LSZ formula is derived. It is the only way to define the S-matrix rigorously. The $+i\... 8 The reasons were given here. Essentially, at tree level you recover classical results. Loop corrections are proportional to powers of$\hbar$and these are quantum terms. 8 First: Scientific theories are never proven, only not falsified. Repeat that until it sinks in. Now, for the actual content of the question: That we only have perturbative ways to compute the S-matrix/scattering amplitudes for the Standard Model is not a reason to doubt its validity. Almost no physical system, apart from toy models, can be solved exactly, ... 8 Renormalization is always needed when the Hamiltonian is singular. Singular means that the formal expression for the Hamiltonian resulting from the interaction specified is not a self-adjoint operator in a dense domain. Then the dynamics is formally ill-defined and must be renormalized by taking care to represent everything properly as a limit that makes ... 7 There is a very easy way to see this and it is through an$\hbar$series. This claim can be traced back to Sydney Coleman and states that in the ultraviolet one is doing an expansion with$\hbar$going to zero. A previous answer cited these lectures on classical fields but I would like to start from the generating functional of the scalar field theory and ... 7 The scattering states must be included in the perturbative calculations if the result is to be highly accurate. In particular, it is not justified to ignore the continuous spectrum at energies close to the dissociation threshold. The Hilbert space in the position representation is the space of square integrable functions on$R^3\setminus\{0\}$with respect ... 7 First, a correction. The first formula is the probability, not probability amplitude. And it's computed at the leading order only, "linearized" in a sense, so of course it is only a good approximation for$P_{f\leftarrow i}\ll 1$. When the probability becomes comparable to one, subleading and higher-order corrections become important because one must also ... 7 The gravitational potential is what is known as a central force, which means that "how strong" the potential is only depends on how far away you are, and not on what angle you are relative to it. Having said that, gravitational systems are often treated in terms of an effective potential (full explanation provided on the Wikipedia page) which look like this ... 7 No. There is nothing wrong with perturbation theory, or with theories with known, restricted accuracy. The point of theory is to explain the results of observation from as simple an initial theoretical standpoint as possible. Therefore: Since experiment always has a finite uncertainty, one can only ask that theory match the experimental value within its ... 6 Most of the difficulties of these calculations comes from the fact that people write the Lagrangian directly in terms of the metric perturbation$h_{\mu\nu}$. It is much simpler to write it in terms of the difference of connections tensor$F_{\mu\nu}{}^\beta$, i.e., $$(\nabla_\mu-\bar{\nabla}_\mu)A_\nu = \mathcal{F}_{\mu\nu}{}^\beta{}A_\beta,$$ where$\...

6

Good question. You are correct in that without any restoring force, an object balanced precariously in an equilibrium position will be unstable. In physics, we use the scalar quantity of "potential" to find the equilibrium positions. These will be the maxima and minima in the potential field. The negative gradient of the potential gives the force. You've ...

6

Qualitative discussion (almost math free) The real key to understand orbits is the conservation of angular momentum. A two body orbit is nice this way insofar as it is a planar system and we get an easy expression for the angular momentum (we'll assume a satellite much, much less massive than the primary and not bother with the canonical transformation ...

6

In order to do perturbation the expansion parameter needs to be small. Otherwise the the system will be strongly coupled and you're in the non-perturbative regime. It's the same as for instance in QM: for perturbative calculations the pertubation must be small.

6

I) This is discussed around eq. (23.7.1) on p. 462 in Ref. 1. The task is to perform the path integral $$\tag{1} \int_{BC} [d\phi]e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}S[\phi]} ~=~\sum_{\nu}\int\! du \int_{BC_0} [d\phi_q]e^{\frac{i}{\hbar}S[\phi_{cl}+\phi_{\nu,u}+\phi_q]}$$ over fields $\phi$ with some (possible inhomogeneous) boundary conditions $BC$. This is done by ...

6

This is a typical perturbative expansion, although presented in a more pedestrian manner. What is usually done for convenience of expansion, is to attach to $H'$ a (time-independent) coupling or scale constant, say $H' \rightarrow \lambda H'$, and to make explicit the assumption that solutions are sought as perturbative expansions in $\lambda$: $$c_a(t) = ... 5 It may be interesting for you to note that the splitting is not unique. In fact, given the quartic oscillator, it is well-known that splitting it into the quadratic part plus the quartic part is not the optimal way to split. Much better results are obtainable by variational perturbation theory, which chooses the interaction in such a way as to minimize ... 5 The amplitudes in generic QFTs behave like$$ {\mathcal A} \sim \sum_{L=0}^\infty L! \cdot A_L \cdot g^{2L} $$where A_L has a slower dependence on L than the factor L!. This fact may be obtained by counting Feynman diagrams (permutations of vertices and loops... many types of Feynman diagrams) or by solving analytically solvable examples. Because of ... 5 My approach would be: first determine the time evolution of \hat{x}(t) and \hat{p}(t). For \hat{x} you have$$ \frac{d}{dt}\hat{x}_H(t) = i[H_H,\hat{x}_H(t)] = \frac{i}{2m} [\hat{p}_H(t)^2,\hat{x}_H(t)] = \frac{\hat{p_H(t)}}{m} $$and for p you have (assuming 0\leq t \leq T)$$ \frac{d}{dt}\hat{p}_H(t) = i[H_H(t),\hat{p}_H(t)] = -m\omega_0^2 \hat{x}...

5

The idea is the following: Consider a series expansion in elementary charge squared, $e^2$: $$S(e^2)=\alpha_0+\alpha_2 e^2+\alpha_4 e^4+\;\ldots$$ Assuming finite convergence radius, $S(e^2)$ is analytic at $e=0$. This leads to the analyticity of $S(-e^2)$ (i.e. $e\rightarrow ie$). A theory with imaginary charges possesses an ...

Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible