Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Journal of Mathematical Physics

Current algebras of free systems at finite temperature

André Girard

Published Mar 1, 1973• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper is a study of the representations of the current algebra for an infinite, free, Bose or Fermi system at finite temperature. The state of the algebra is calculated for a finite system by use of the grand canonical formalism of statistical physics, and the thermodynamic limit is used to get the representation of the infinite case. An expression of the states is given in terms of determinants of one particle operators. In a second part, the usual formulas for the occupation density, the condensation temperature for bosons, etc., are recovered. It is also found that the canonical and grand canonical formalisms are equivalent when used to study Fermi systems in the thermodynamic limit, but not so for the Bose systems. It is postulated that this has something to do with the phase transition of Bose systems. Finally, the problem of the Hamiltonian is discussed in some details. The states calculated previously are used to test a method for calculating expectation values of the Hamiltonian, given the states of the algebra; it yields the correct value for the case of the free system at finite temperature.

DOI
10.1063/1.1666321

Related papers

Representations of the Canonical Commutation Relations Describing a Nonrelativistic Infinite Free Bose Gas

H. Araki, E. J. Woods

The existence of inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations which describe a nonrelativistic infinite free Bose gas of uniform density is investigated, with a view to possible applications to statistical mechanics. The functional E(f, g)=(Ψ, eiφ(f) eiπ(g)Ψ) is used to describe the inequivalent representations. This functional is calculated for the free Bose gas in a box of volume V, and the limit is then taken as V → ∞. In this way we construct cyclic representations describing an infinite system of particles with a density distribution ρ(k) in momentum space. For a given ρ(k) the operator algebra generated by the φ(f), π(g) is reducible. For the ground-state representation (all particles in the zero-momentum state), the representation is a direct integral of irreducible representations (analogous to BCS theory). For finite temperatures the situation is complicated by the occurrence of representations which are not type I. The physical significance of the reducibility of the representations is discussed. It is argued that the thermal ensemble for the infinite system is a pure state at zero temperature, although there is some ambiguity as to which operators should belong to the algebra of observables. For finite temperatures, the thermal ensemble seems to be a mixture. The case of an interacting Bose gas is considered briefly.

Journal of Mathematical Physics•May 1, 1963•398 citations

Bose-Einstein statistics for a finite number of particles

Pedro Pessoa

This paper presents a study of the grand canonical Bose-Einstein (BE) statistics for a finite number of particles in an arbitrary quantum system. The thermodynamical quantities that identify BE condensation---namely, the fraction of particles in the ground state and the specific heat---are calculated here exactly in terms of temperature and fugacity. These calculations are complemented by a numerical calculation of fugacity in terms of the number of particles, without taking the thermodynamic limit. The main advantage of this approach is that it does not rely on approximations made in the vicinity of the usually defined critical temperature, rather it makes calculations with arbitrary precision possible, irrespective of temperature. Graphs for the calculated thermodynamical quantities are presented in comparison to the results previously obtained in the thermodynamic limit. In particular, it is observed that for the gas trapped in a three-dimensional box, the derivative of specific heat reaches smaller values than what was expected in the thermodynamic limit---here, this result is also verified with analytical calculations. This is an important result for understanding the role of the thermodynamic limit in phase transitions and makes possible to further study BE statistics without relying neither on the thermodynamic limit nor on approximations near critical temperature.

arXiv:2110.02890•Physical Review A•Oct 25, 2021•4 citations

Re-examining the Statistical Mechanics of an Interacting Bose Gas

A. M. Ettouhami

We re-examine the way in which Bogoliubov's theory of a dilute Bose gas at $T=0$ has been extended to describe the statistical mechanics of interacting bosons at finite temperature. We show explicitly that the field-theoretic calculation of the grand partition function in this formulation amounts to a canonical trace over the eigenfunctions of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian at fixed total number of bosons $N$, and that the additional trace over $N$ that is required in the grand-canonical formalism is never carried out. This implies that what usually passes as the grand-canonical treatment of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian is not quite grand-canonical, and is in fact a canonical one. We also show that the discontinuity in the condensate density predicted by previous formulations of this theory as the temperature $T$ goes past the critical transition temperature $T_c$ is a direct consequence of an inappropriate generalization of the Bogoliubov prescription to finite temperatures, and that this discontinuity disappears when this prescription is either used as a zero temperature approximation or avoided altogether. Armed with the above findings, we reformulate the statistical mechanics of interacting bosons in the canonical ensemble and derive the thermodynamics of the system. We then show how the canonical treatment can be used to setup a truly grand-canonical description of the statistical mechanics of a weakly interacting Bose gas where the average number of bosons in the system varies with temperature, unlike existing formulations where the total number of bosons $N$ is taken to be a constant that does not depend on $T$. Consequences on the physics of interacting bosons are briefly discussed.

arXiv:1702.00899•Feb 3, 2017•0 citations

Algebraic Quantum Statistical Mechanics and Bose-Einstein Condensation

Kalle Matias Koskinen

This thesis can be regarded as a light, but thorough, introduction to the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics and a subsequent test of this framework in the form of an application to Bose-Einstein condensates. The success of the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics hinges upon the remarkable properties of special operator algebras known as C^*-algebras. These algebras have unique characterization properties which allows one to readily identify the mathematical counterparts of concepts in physics while at the same time maintaining mathematical rigour and clarity. In the first half of this thesis, we focus on abstract C^*-algebras known as the canonical commutation relation algebras (CCR algebras) which are generated by elements satisfying specific commutation relations. The main result in this section is the proof of a certain kind of algebraic uniqueness of these algebras. The main idea of the proof is to utilise the underlying common structure of any of the CCR algebras and explicitly construct an isomorphism between the generators of these algebras. The construction of this isomorphism involves the use of abstract Fourier analysis on groups and various arguments concerning bounded operators. The second half of the thesis concerns the rigorous set-up of the formation of Bose-Einstein condensation. First, one defines the Gibbs grand canonical equilibrium states, and then we specialize to studying the taking of the thermodynamic limit of these systems in various contexts. The main result of this section involves two main elements. The first is that by fixing the temperature and density of the system while varying its activity and volume, there exists a limiting state corresponding to the taking of the thermodynamic limit. The second element concerns the existence of a critical density after which the limiting state begins to show the physical characteristics of Bose-Einstein condensation. The mathematical issues one faces with Bose-Einstein condensation are mainly related to the unboundedness of the creation and annihilation operators and the definition of the algebra that we are working on. The first issue is relevant to all areas of mathematical physics, and one deals with it in the standard ways. The second issue is more nuanced and is a direct result of the first issue we mentioned. In particular, we would like to define the states on an algebra which contains the operators that we are interested in. The problem is that these operators are unbounded, and, as a result, one must instead use the CCR algebra and show by extension that we can, in fact, also use the unbounded operators in this state.

Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja•Jan 1, 2018•0 citations

Field-theoretic approach to many-boson systems

Gary S. Grest, A. K. Rajagopal

It is now well established that current and density may be used as coordinates in describing a nonrelativistic many-body system. The current and density operators form a closed algebra as they obey a set of equal-time commutation relations. A particular choice of the algebra containing only the longitudinal component of the current describes a fluid in a simple way. For Bose systems, we show that there exists a special choice of this longitudinal current which is an irreducible representation of the algebra, but expressed in two different ways leading to the formulations of Bogoliubov and Zubarev (BZ) and that of Sunakawa and his coworkers (S). This demonstration proves the formal equivalence of the two formulations. The BZ formalism leads to a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian for which use of a certain mathematical technique recently proposed by us yields completely divergence-free results for Bose systems. A temperature-dependent matrix Green's-function theory is developed and the self-energy matrix calculated. From this, we also deduce the structure factor in a straightforward way. These results are applied here to compute numerically the excitation spectrum of the superfluid liquid helium using the experimental structure factor as the only input into the computation. Comparison of this with other calculations and with experiment is discussed in detail in this paper. The problem of a charged Bose gas is considered as a testing ground for all theories of Bose fluids since certain exact results are known for this system. We have applied our method using the BZ Hamiltonian to this problem and we are in complete agreement with the exact results. It thus appears that the current-algebra approach can be quite successfully applied in elucidating properties of interacting Bose systems.

Physical Review A•Oct 1, 1974•25 citations

Thermodynamics and occupation numbers of a Fermi gas in the canonical ensemble

Kurt Schönhammer

Exact results for the thermodynamic properties and mean occupation numbers of a system of noninteracting fermions with equidistant level spacing are presented for an arbitrary number of particles. It is discussed quantitatively how the results converge to the corresponding ones in the grand canonical ensemble when the thermodynamic limit is reached. From the simple calculations it also follows that the thermodynamics of an infinite two-dimensional electron gas is identical to that of a one-dimensional harmonic chain with linearized dispersion. The results generalize and simplify previous approaches to this model published in this journal.

American Journal of Physics•Nov 1, 2000•20 citations
This paper is a study of the representations of the current algebra for an infinite, free, Bose or Fermi system at finite temperature. The state of the algebra is calculated for a finite system by use of the grand canonical formalism of statistical physics, and the thermodynamic limit is used to get the representation of the infinite case. An expression of the states is given in terms of determinants of one particle operators. In a second part, the usual formulas for the occupation density, the condensation temperature for bosons, etc., are recovered. It is also found that the canonical and grand canonical formalisms are equivalent when used to study Fermi systems in the thermodynamic limit, but not so for the Bose systems. It is postulated that this has something to do with the phase transition of Bose systems. Finally, the problem of the Hamiltonian is discussed in some details. The states calculated previously are used to test a method for calculating expectation values of the Hamiltonian, given the states of the algebra; it yields the correct value for the case of the free system at finite temperature.
The existence of inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations which describe a nonrelativistic infinite free Bose gas of uniform density is investigated, with a view to possible applications to statistical mechanics. The functional E(f, g)=(Ψ, eiφ(f) eiπ(g)Ψ) is used to describe the inequivalent representations. This functional is calculated for the free Bose gas in a box of volume V, and the limit is then taken as V → ∞. In this way we construct cyclic representations describing an infinite system of particles with a density distribution ρ(k) in momentum space. For a given ρ(k) the operator algebra generated by the φ(f), π(g) is reducible. For the ground-state representation (all particles in the zero-momentum state), the representation is a direct integral of irreducible representations (analogous to BCS theory). For finite temperatures the situation is complicated by the occurrence of representations which are not type I. The physical significance of the reducibility of the representations is discussed. It is argued that the thermal ensemble for the infinite system is a pure state at zero temperature, although there is some ambiguity as to which operators should belong to the algebra of observables. For finite temperatures, the thermal ensemble seems to be a mixture. The case of an interacting Bose gas is considered briefly.
This paper presents a study of the grand canonical Bose-Einstein (BE) statistics for a finite number of particles in an arbitrary quantum system. The thermodynamical quantities that identify BE condensation---namely, the fraction of particles in the ground state and the specific heat---are calculated here exactly in terms of temperature and fugacity. These calculations are complemented by a numerical calculation of fugacity in terms of the number of particles, without taking the thermodynamic limit. The main advantage of this approach is that it does not rely on approximations made in the vicinity of the usually defined critical temperature, rather it makes calculations with arbitrary precision possible, irrespective of temperature. Graphs for the calculated thermodynamical quantities are presented in comparison to the results previously obtained in the thermodynamic limit. In particular, it is observed that for the gas trapped in a three-dimensional box, the derivative of specific heat reaches smaller values than what was expected in the thermodynamic limit---here, this result is also verified with analytical calculations. This is an important result for understanding the role of the thermodynamic limit in phase transitions and makes possible to further study BE statistics without relying neither on the thermodynamic limit nor on approximations near critical temperature.
We re-examine the way in which Bogoliubov's theory of a dilute Bose gas at T=0T=0T=0 has been extended to describe the statistical mechanics of interacting bosons at finite temperature. We show explicitly that the field-theoretic calculation of the grand partition function in this formulation amounts to a canonical trace over the eigenfunctions of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian at fixed total number of bosons NNN, and that the additional trace over NNN that is required in the grand-canonical formalism is never carried out. This implies that what usually passes as the grand-canonical treatment of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian is not quite grand-canonical, and is in fact a canonical one. We also show that the discontinuity in the condensate density predicted by previous formulations of this theory as the temperature TTT goes past the critical transition temperature TcT_cTc​ is a direct consequence of an inappropriate generalization of the Bogoliubov prescription to finite temperatures, and that this discontinuity disappears when this prescription is either used as a zero temperature approximation or avoided altogether. Armed with the above findings, we reformulate the statistical mechanics of interacting bosons in the canonical ensemble and derive the thermodynamics of the system. We then show how the canonical treatment can be used to setup a truly grand-canonical description of the statistical mechanics of a weakly interacting Bose gas where the average number of bosons in the system varies with temperature, unlike existing formulations where the total number of bosons NNN is taken to be a constant that does not depend on TTT. Consequences on the physics of interacting bosons are briefly discussed.
This thesis can be regarded as a light, but thorough, introduction to the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics and a subsequent test of this framework in the form of an application to Bose-Einstein condensates. The success of the algebraic approach to quantum statistical mechanics hinges upon the remarkable properties of special operator algebras known as C^*-algebras. These algebras have unique characterization properties which allows one to readily identify the mathematical counterparts of concepts in physics while at the same time maintaining mathematical rigour and clarity. In the first half of this thesis, we focus on abstract C^*-algebras known as the canonical commutation relation algebras (CCR algebras) which are generated by elements satisfying specific commutation relations. The main result in this section is the proof of a certain kind of algebraic uniqueness of these algebras. The main idea of the proof is to utilise the underlying common structure of any of the CCR algebras and explicitly construct an isomorphism between the generators of these algebras. The construction of this isomorphism involves the use of abstract Fourier analysis on groups and various arguments concerning bounded operators. The second half of the thesis concerns the rigorous set-up of the formation of Bose-Einstein condensation. First, one defines the Gibbs grand canonical equilibrium states, and then we specialize to studying the taking of the thermodynamic limit of these systems in various contexts. The main result of this section involves two main elements. The first is that by fixing the temperature and density of the system while varying its activity and volume, there exists a limiting state corresponding to the taking of the thermodynamic limit. The second element concerns the existence of a critical density after which the limiting state begins to show the physical characteristics of Bose-Einstein condensation. The mathematical issues one faces with Bose-Einstein condensation are mainly related to the unboundedness of the creation and annihilation operators and the definition of the algebra that we are working on. The first issue is relevant to all areas of mathematical physics, and one deals with it in the standard ways. The second issue is more nuanced and is a direct result of the first issue we mentioned. In particular, we would like to define the states on an algebra which contains the operators that we are interested in. The problem is that these operators are unbounded, and, as a result, one must instead use the CCR algebra and show by extension that we can, in fact, also use the unbounded operators in this state.
It is now well established that current and density may be used as coordinates in describing a nonrelativistic many-body system. The current and density operators form a closed algebra as they obey a set of equal-time commutation relations. A particular choice of the algebra containing only the longitudinal component of the current describes a fluid in a simple way. For Bose systems, we show that there exists a special choice of this longitudinal current which is an irreducible representation of the algebra, but expressed in two different ways leading to the formulations of Bogoliubov and Zubarev (BZ) and that of Sunakawa and his coworkers (S). This demonstration proves the formal equivalence of the two formulations. The BZ formalism leads to a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian for which use of a certain mathematical technique recently proposed by us yields completely divergence-free results for Bose systems. A temperature-dependent matrix Green's-function theory is developed and the self-energy matrix calculated. From this, we also deduce the structure factor in a straightforward way. These results are applied here to compute numerically the excitation spectrum of the superfluid liquid helium using the experimental structure factor as the only input into the computation. Comparison of this with other calculations and with experiment is discussed in detail in this paper. The problem of a charged Bose gas is considered as a testing ground for all theories of Bose fluids since certain exact results are known for this system. We have applied our method using the BZ Hamiltonian to this problem and we are in complete agreement with the exact results. It thus appears that the current-algebra approach can be quite successfully applied in elucidating properties of interacting Bose systems.
Exact results for the thermodynamic properties and mean occupation numbers of a system of noninteracting fermions with equidistant level spacing are presented for an arbitrary number of particles. It is discussed quantitatively how the results converge to the corresponding ones in the grand canonical ensemble when the thermodynamic limit is reached. From the simple calculations it also follows that the thermodynamics of an infinite two-dimensional electron gas is identical to that of a one-dimensional harmonic chain with linearized dispersion. The results generalize and simplify previous approaches to this model published in this journal.