Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A Mathematical and Physical Sciences

XII.—Quantum Mechanics of Fields. II. Statistics of Pure Fields

Max Born, Haojin Peng

Published Jan 1, 1944• 0 citations

Abstract

The quantum mechanics of fields recently developed by us leads to a modification of statistical mechanics of elementary particles which seems to overcome some of the difficulties (divergence of integrals) occurring in the usual quantum theory of fields. The main difference between the new theory and the usual one is as follows. In the usual theory the wave-vector k is introduced classically and, so to speak, kinematically by the Fourier analysis of the field. The Fourier coefficients of the field components are then treated according to quantum mechanics as non-commuting quantities; those belonging to the wave-vector k describe the corresponding “model” mechanical system, namely the kth radiation oscillator. But the statement that the Fourier coefficients belonging to a certain k all vanish, which statement classically is significant, is now meaningless because there is a lowest state with zero-point energy for each radiation oscillator. The field is thus made to be equivalent to the assembly of radiation oscillators of all possible wave-vectors which, being necessarily infinite in number, contribute an infinite zero-point energy for the pure field and lead to other divergent integrals for the interaction between different fields.

DOI: 10.1017/s0080454100006464

Related papers

XV.—Quantum Mechanics of Fields. III. Electromagnetic Field and Electron Field in Interaction

Max Born, Haojin Peng

Studying the interaction of different pure fields, we have been led to some essential modifications of the ideas on which our quantum mechanics of fields is based. We shall explain these here for the example of the interaction of the Maxwell and the Dirac field. In Part I we showed that a pure field in a given volume Ω can be described by considering the potentials and field components as matrices, not attached to single points in Ω (as the theory of Heisenberg and Pauli), but to the whole volume. Further, we assumed the total energy and momentum to be the product of Ω and the corresponding densities. In Part † we showed that this conception has to be modified; the eigenvalues of the energy and momentum as defined in Part I represent neither the states of single particles nor of a system of particles, but of something intermediate which corresponds to the simple oscillators of Heisenberg-Pauli and which we have called apeirons. The total energy and momentum of the system is a sum over the contributions of an assembly of apeirons. Mathematically the differences of the quantum mechanics of a field from that of a set of mass points (as treated in ordinary quantum mechanics) is the fact that the matrices representing a field are reducible (while those representing co-ordinates of mass points are irreducible); each irreducible submatrix corresponds to an apeiron.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A Mathematical and Physical SciencesJan 1, 19460 citations

VII.—Quantum Mechanics of Fields. I. Pure Fields

Max Born, Haojin Peng

The difficulties met in the usual treatment of quantised field theories seem to us somewhat similar to those which occurred in Bohr's semi-classical quantum mechanics of particles. In this theory the orbits were described by Fourier series in the time; there was no exact correspondence between the periodic terms of this series and quantum transitions, but only an approximate one for terms of high order. Matrix mechanics considers not the Fourier series, but the single terms which are generalised into matrix elements having not one but two indices. This generalisation is founded on Ritz's combination principle.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A Mathematical and Physical SciencesJan 1, 19440 citations

The quantum theory of dispersion

P. A. M. Dirac

Abstract The new quantum mechanics could at first be used to answer questions concerning radiation only through analogies with the classical theory. In Heisenberg’s original matrix theory, for instance, it is assumed that the matrix elements of the polarisation of an atom determine the emission and absorption of radiation analogously to the Fourier components in the classical theory. In more recent theories a certain expression for the electric density obtained from the quantum mechanics is used to determine the emitted radiation by the same formulæ as in the classical theory. These methods give satisfactory results in many cases, but cannot even be applied to problems where the classical analogies are obscure or non-existent, such as resonance radiation and the breadths of spectral lines. A theory of radiation has been given by the author which rests on a more definite basis. It appears that one can treat a field of radiation as a dynamical system, whose interaction with an ordinary atomic system may be described by a Hamiltonian function. The dynamical variables specifying the field are the energies and phases of its various harmonic conrponents, each of which is effectively a simple harmonic oscillator. One must, of course, in the quantum theory take these variables to be q-numbers satisfying the proper quantum conditions. One finds then that the Hamiltonian for the interaction of the field with an atom is of the same form as that for the interaction of an assembly of light-quanta with the atom. There is thus a complete formal reconciliation between the wave and light-quantum points of view.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical CharacterMay 2, 1927430 citations

The Quantum Statistics

John von Neumann

This chapter returns to the analysis of quantum mechanical theories. In the previous chapter, how quantum mechanics makes possible the determination of all possible values of one particular physical quantity—energy—was only discussed. These values are the eigenvalues of the energy operator (i.e., the numbers of its spectrum). On the other hand, no mention was made about the values of other quantities, as well as regarding the causal or statistical relations among the values of several quantities. The statements of the theory relative to this problem are thus considered in this chapter. It takes as a basis the wave mechanical method of description since the equivalence of the two theories has already been established.

Princeton University Press eBooksFeb 27, 20183 citations

General forms of statistical mechanics with special reference to the requirements of the new quantum mechanics

Ralph Howard Fowler

Abstract It is well known that a new form of statistical mechanics has been recently developed by Einstein for an ideal gas of structureless mass-points. This starts from a discussion by Bose of the laws of temperature radiation based on the light quantum hypothesis, and has been further analysed by Schrödinger. Yet another new form has been proposed independently by Fermi and Dirac. The latter based his theory on a discussion of lightly coupled systems with the help of Schrödinger’s equation. Combined with Heisenberg’s work on the many-body problem, Dirac’s work forces us to conclude at least that the classical form of statistical mechanics must be changed. It indicates that the true form, which satisfies the laws of the new mechanics, is almost certainly that of Fermi and Dirac, which is the natural generalization of Pauli’s principle of exclusion for electronic orbits in an atom. The work of Heisenberg and Dirac already quoted has shown that Pauli’s principle and its extension are satisfied in the new mechanics by a complete self-consistent solution of the equations of motion. So far as I am aware, the discussions of the new forms have as yet dealt only with the statistics of a gas of structureless mass-points (and, of course, temperature radiation). There has, moreover, been as yet no attempt to define the entropy (and the absolute temperature) in strict analogy with rational thermodynamics by means of the equation dQ = TdS. If another definition is preferred, then this equation must be deduced from it. It has, therefore, seemed worth while to reopen the discussion by examining ab initio a quite general form of statistical mechanics of which the classical form and instein’s and Fermi-Dirac’s are special cases. This is rendered possible by using the powerful method of complex integration already applied to the classical form. The sequence of the argument is then to take the general form, which covers a very large range of ways of assigning possibilities and counting complexions, and construct on that basis exact integral expressions for the number of complexions possible to the assembly and for the average number of systems of the assembly in their various quantum states. We then derive from these the average energies and external reactions and so the form of dQ, deduce from dQ the existence of S and so define S and T. This can be done in the general form for assemblies of ideal systems just as general as can be handled in the classical way—ideal gases of molecules of any structure and crystals and radiation. Such assemblies are in all cases thermodynamical systems.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series A Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical CharacterDec 1, 192640 citations

Quantum mechanics as an approximation of classical statistical mechanics

Andrei Yu. Khrennikov

We show that the probabilistic formalism of QM can be obtained as a special projection of classical statistical mechanics for systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Such systems can be interpreted as classical fields. Thus in our approach QM is a projection of (prequantum) classical statistical field theory (PCSFT). This projection is based on the Taylor expansion of classical physical variables – maps f: Ω → R, where Ω is the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. The space of classical statistical states consists of Gaussian measures on Ω having zero mean value and negligibly small dispersion. On one hand, the creation of such a prequantum model strongly supports attempts (first of all by Schrödinger and Einstein) to create purely field model of QM. On the other hand, it gives the possibility to go beyond QM. The main experimental prediction is that averages calculated in the mathematical formalism of QM (von Neumann’s trace formula) are only approximative averages. If predictions of PCSFT are correct then it would be possible to find deviations of experimental averages from quantum ones. 1

Jun 3, 20050 citations