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

CRC Press eBooks

Second Quantization and Coherent States

John W. Negele, Henri Orland

Published Mar 5, 2018• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter presents an analogous formalism which is developed for systems composed of many identical particles. Another extremely useful basis of the Fock space is the basis of coherent states which is analogous to the basis of position eigenstates in quantum mechanics. A crucial property of the coherent states is their overcompleteness in the Fock space, that is, the fact that any vector of the Fock space can be expanded in terms of coherent states. Boson coherent states are the physical states which emerge naturally when taking the classical limit of quantum mechanics or of a quantum field theory. In contrast, Fermion coherent states are not contained in the Fermion Fock space, they are not physically observable, and there are no classical fields of Fermions. In the subsequent development, this physical difference will give rise to some significant differences in the treatment of Bosons and Fermions.

DOI
10.1201/9780429497926-1

Related papers

Symmetry Requirements in QFT

Lukong Cornelius Fai

This chapter introduces and applies the method of second quantization, a technique that underpins the formulation of quantum many-particle theories. Second quantization formalism treats systems of bosons or fermions with a fixed or variable number of particles in a unified way. The chapter reviews the key aspects of this formalism. The formalism of second quantization treats systems of bosons with a fixed or variable number of particles in a unified manner. In many physical processes, the particle number does change. Different quantum operators are expressed most naturally in different representations, which make basis changes an essential issue in quantum physics. Quantum field theory is a universal tool that has applications ranging from atomic, molecular, and particle physics to condensed matter and statistical physics as well as modern quantum chemistry. The fundamental difference between classical and quantum mechanics relates to the concept of indistinguishability of identical particles.

CRC Press eBooks•Jun 20, 2019•0 citations

Quantum Many-Particle Systems and Second Quantization

Hans-Peter Eckle

Abstract Chapter 2 provides a review of pertinent aspects of the quantum mechanics of systems composed of many particles. It focuses on the foundations of quantum many-particle physics, the many-particle Hilbert spaces to describe large assemblies of interacting systems composed of Bosons or Fermions, which lead to the versatile formalism of second quantization as a convenient and eminently practical language ubiquitous in the mathematical formulation of the theory of many-particle systems of quantum matter. The main objects in which the formalism of second quantization is expressed are the Bosonic or Fermionic creation and annihilation operators that become, in the position basis, the quantum field operators.

•Jul 25, 2019•0 citations

Second quantization

Yuli V. Nazarov, Jeroen Danon

In this chapter we describe a technique to deal with identical particles that is called second quantization . Despite being a technique, second quantization helps a lot in understanding physics. One can learn and endlessly repeat newspaper-style statements particles are fields , fields are particles without grasping their meaning. Second quantization brings these concepts to an operational level. Since the procedure of second quantization is slightly different for fermions and bosons, we have to treat the two cases separately. We start with considering a system of identical bosons, and introduce creation and annihilation operators (CAPs) that change the number of particles in a given many-particle state, thereby connecting different states in Fock space. We show how to express occupation numbers in terms of CAPs, and then get to the heart of the second quantization: the commutation relations for the bosonic CAPs. As a next step, we construct field operators out of the CAPs and spend quite some time (and energy) presenting the physics of the particles in terms of these field operators. Only afterward, do we explain why all this activity has been called second quantization. In Section 3.4 we then present the same procedure for fermions, and we mainly focus on what is different as compared to bosons. The formalism of second quantization is summarized in Table 3.1.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Jan 3, 2013•0 citations

Quantum dynamics

In this chapter, we derived some elements of quantum mechanics, which are essential for the further development of our theory: the momentum of a system of Fermions in the second quantization, the coordinate and momentum of a harmonic oscillator as a unique operator at two different moments of time, Boson and Fermion operator algebra, coherent states, the electron-field interaction, the quantization of the electromagnetic field, Boson and Fermion distributions, and densities of states in a degenerate, or a non-degenerate system of Fermions. Our starting point is the wave nature of a quantum particle, the Hamiltonian equations were obtained as group velocities in the two conjugate spaces of the wave, of the coordinates and of the momentum. In this way, the Schr¨odinger equation and the electron-field potential of interaction are obtained from quantum equations generated by the particle wave function.

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS eBooks•Dec 17, 2014•0 citations

Bosonic Coherent States

Didier Robert, Monique Combescure

In a first part we give a brief presentation of general Fock space setting to describe quantum field theory. Bosons are quantum particles with integer spin and have symmetric wave functions; Fermions are quantum particles with half-integer spin and are represented by anti-symmetric wave functions. The functional setting is given by a symmetric or anti-symmetric tensor product of Hilbert spaces. We describe these spaces and transformations between these spaces. We shall follow the references [23, 42]. Coherent states are defined by translating the vacuum states with the Weyl operators. This is easily done here for bosons. We shall see in the next chapter how to deal with fermions. In a second part we give an interesting application of bosonic coherent states to the study of the classical limit as \(\hbar \searrow 0\) of non-relativistic boson systems with two body interaction in the neighborhood of a solution of the classical system (here the Hartree equation). The classical limit corresponds here to the mean-field limit as the number of particles goes to infinity. As we have done for finite systems, we use here Hepp’s method, which is a linearization procedure of the quantum Hamiltonian around the classical field. The fluctuations around this solution are controlled by a purely quadratic Hamiltonian. In a series of several important papers [114–116] Ginibre and Velo have proven an asymptotic expansion and remainder estimates for these quantum fluctuations. Finally, following the paper [225] one can show that, in the limit \(\hbar \rightarrow 0\), the marginal distribution of the time-evolved coherent states tends in trace-norm to the projector onto the solution of the classical fields equation (Hartree equation) with a uniform remainder estimates in time.

Theoretical and mathematical physics•Jan 1, 2021•0 citations

Many-Body Physics and Second Quantization

Michael El-Batanouny

Introduces the idea of second quantized operators in the many-particle domain, Fock spaces, field operators, and vacuum states, and outlines how canonical transformations can be applied to solve many-body problems. Coherent states, as eigenstates of the annihilation operator, including the development of Grassmann’s algebra and calculus for fermions, are presented.

Cambridge University Press eBooks•Mar 6, 2020•0 citations
This chapter presents an analogous formalism which is developed for systems composed of many identical particles. Another extremely useful basis of the Fock space is the basis of coherent states which is analogous to the basis of position eigenstates in quantum mechanics. A crucial property of the coherent states is their overcompleteness in the Fock space, that is, the fact that any vector of the Fock space can be expanded in terms of coherent states. Boson coherent states are the physical states which emerge naturally when taking the classical limit of quantum mechanics or of a quantum field theory. In contrast, Fermion coherent states are not contained in the Fermion Fock space, they are not physically observable, and there are no classical fields of Fermions. In the subsequent development, this physical difference will give rise to some significant differences in the treatment of Bosons and Fermions.
This chapter introduces and applies the method of second quantization, a technique that underpins the formulation of quantum many-particle theories. Second quantization formalism treats systems of bosons or fermions with a fixed or variable number of particles in a unified way. The chapter reviews the key aspects of this formalism. The formalism of second quantization treats systems of bosons with a fixed or variable number of particles in a unified manner. In many physical processes, the particle number does change. Different quantum operators are expressed most naturally in different representations, which make basis changes an essential issue in quantum physics. Quantum field theory is a universal tool that has applications ranging from atomic, molecular, and particle physics to condensed matter and statistical physics as well as modern quantum chemistry. The fundamental difference between classical and quantum mechanics relates to the concept of indistinguishability of identical particles.
Abstract Chapter 2 provides a review of pertinent aspects of the quantum mechanics of systems composed of many particles. It focuses on the foundations of quantum many-particle physics, the many-particle Hilbert spaces to describe large assemblies of interacting systems composed of Bosons or Fermions, which lead to the versatile formalism of second quantization as a convenient and eminently practical language ubiquitous in the mathematical formulation of the theory of many-particle systems of quantum matter. The main objects in which the formalism of second quantization is expressed are the Bosonic or Fermionic creation and annihilation operators that become, in the position basis, the quantum field operators.
In this chapter we describe a technique to deal with identical particles that is called second quantization . Despite being a technique, second quantization helps a lot in understanding physics. One can learn and endlessly repeat newspaper-style statements particles are fields , fields are particles without grasping their meaning. Second quantization brings these concepts to an operational level. Since the procedure of second quantization is slightly different for fermions and bosons, we have to treat the two cases separately. We start with considering a system of identical bosons, and introduce creation and annihilation operators (CAPs) that change the number of particles in a given many-particle state, thereby connecting different states in Fock space. We show how to express occupation numbers in terms of CAPs, and then get to the heart of the second quantization: the commutation relations for the bosonic CAPs. As a next step, we construct field operators out of the CAPs and spend quite some time (and energy) presenting the physics of the particles in terms of these field operators. Only afterward, do we explain why all this activity has been called second quantization. In Section 3.4 we then present the same procedure for fermions, and we mainly focus on what is different as compared to bosons. The formalism of second quantization is summarized in Table 3.1.
In this chapter, we derived some elements of quantum mechanics, which are essential for the further development of our theory: the momentum of a system of Fermions in the second quantization, the coordinate and momentum of a harmonic oscillator as a unique operator at two different moments of time, Boson and Fermion operator algebra, coherent states, the electron-field interaction, the quantization of the electromagnetic field, Boson and Fermion distributions, and densities of states in a degenerate, or a non-degenerate system of Fermions. Our starting point is the wave nature of a quantum particle, the Hamiltonian equations were obtained as group velocities in the two conjugate spaces of the wave, of the coordinates and of the momentum. In this way, the Schr¨odinger equation and the electron-field potential of interaction are obtained from quantum equations generated by the particle wave function.
In a first part we give a brief presentation of general Fock space setting to describe quantum field theory. Bosons are quantum particles with integer spin and have symmetric wave functions; Fermions are quantum particles with half-integer spin and are represented by anti-symmetric wave functions. The functional setting is given by a symmetric or anti-symmetric tensor product of Hilbert spaces. We describe these spaces and transformations between these spaces. We shall follow the references [23, 42]. Coherent states are defined by translating the vacuum states with the Weyl operators. This is easily done here for bosons. We shall see in the next chapter how to deal with fermions. In a second part we give an interesting application of bosonic coherent states to the study of the classical limit as ℏ↘0\hbar \searrow 0ℏ↘0 of non-relativistic boson systems with two body interaction in the neighborhood of a solution of the classical system (here the Hartree equation). The classical limit corresponds here to the mean-field limit as the number of particles goes to infinity. As we have done for finite systems, we use here Hepp’s method, which is a linearization procedure of the quantum Hamiltonian around the classical field. The fluctuations around this solution are controlled by a purely quadratic Hamiltonian. In a series of several important papers [114–116] Ginibre and Velo have proven an asymptotic expansion and remainder estimates for these quantum fluctuations. Finally, following the paper [225] one can show that, in the limit ℏ→0\hbar \rightarrow 0ℏ→0, the marginal distribution of the time-evolved coherent states tends in trace-norm to the projector onto the solution of the classical fields equation (Hartree equation) with a uniform remainder estimates in time.