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Biography
Edwin C. Kemble
Edwin Crawford Kemble (January 28, 1889 in Delaware, Ohio – March 12, 1984) was an American physicist who made contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics and molecular structure and spectroscopy. During World War II, he was a consultant to the Navy on acoustic detection of submarines and to the Army on Operation Alsos.[1] Kemble began college in 1906 at Ohio Wesleyan University, but h
  • 420
  • 08 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Bloch Wave
A Bloch wave (also called Bloch state or Bloch function or Bloch wavefunction), named after Swiss physicist Felix Bloch, is a kind of wave function which can be written as a plane wave modulated by a periodic function. By definition, if a wave is a Bloch wave, its wavefunction can be written in the form: where [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{r} }[/math] is position, [math]\displaystyle{ \psi }[/math] is the Bloch wave, [math]\displaystyle{ u }[/math] is a periodic function with the same periodicity as the crystal, the wave vector [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{k} }[/math] is the crystal momentum vector, [math]\displaystyle{ \mathrm{e} }[/math] is Euler's number, and [math]\displaystyle{ \mathrm{i} }[/math] is the imaginary unit. Bloch waves are important in solid-state physics, where they are often used to describe an electron in a crystal. This application is motivated by Bloch's theorem, which states that the energy eigenstates for an electron in a crystal can be written as Bloch waves (more precisely, it states that the electron wave functions in a crystal have a basis consisting entirely of Bloch wave energy eigenstates). This fact underlies the concept of electronic band structures. These Bloch wave energy eigenstates are written with subscripts as [math]\displaystyle{ \psi_{n\mathbf{k}} }[/math], where [math]\displaystyle{ n }[/math] is a discrete index, called the band index, which is present because there are many different Bloch waves with the same [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{k} }[/math] (each has a different periodic component [math]\displaystyle{ u }[/math]). Within a band (i.e., for fixed [math]\displaystyle{ n }[/math]), [math]\displaystyle{ \psi_{n\mathbf{k}} }[/math] varies continuously with [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{k} }[/math], as does its energy. Also, for any reciprocal lattice vector [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{K} }[/math], [math]\displaystyle{ \psi_{n\mathbf{k}}=\psi_{n(\mathbf{k+K})} }[/math]. Therefore, all distinct Bloch waves occur for values of [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbf{k} }[/math] which fall within the first Brillouin zone of the reciprocal lattice.
  • 3.2K
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Bell Test Experiments
A Bell test experiment or Bell's inequality experiment, also simply a Bell test, is a real-world physics experiment designed to test the theory of quantum mechanics in relation to Albert Einstein's concept of local realism. The experiments test whether or not the real world satisfies local realism, which requires the presence of some additional local variables (called "hidden" because they are not a feature of quantum theory) to explain the behavior of particles like photons and electrons. To date, all Bell tests have found that the hypothesis of local hidden variables is inconsistent with the way that physical systems behave. According to Bell's theorem, if nature actually operates in accord with any theory of local hidden variables, then the results of a Bell test will be constrained in a particular, quantifiable way. If a Bell test is performed in a laboratory and the results are not thus constrained, then they are inconsistent with the hypothesis that local hidden variables exist. Such results would support the position that there is no way to explain the phenomena of quantum mechanics in terms of a more fundamental description of nature that is more in line with the rules of classical physics. Many types of Bell test have been performed in physics laboratories, often with the goal of ameliorating problems of experimental design or set-up that could in principle affect the validity of the findings of earlier Bell tests. This is known as "closing loopholes in Bell test experiments". In a novel experiment conducted in 2016, over 100,000 volunteers participated in an online video game that used human choices to produce the data for researchers conducting multiple independent tests across the globe.
  • 3.8K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Mid-Infrared External Cavity Quantum Cascade Lasers
External cavity quantum cascade lasers (ECQCLs) in the mid-infrared band have a series of unique spectral properties, which can be widely used in spectroscopy, gas detection, protein detection, medical diagnosis, free space optical communication, and so on, especially wide tuning range, the tuning range up to hundreds of wavenumbers; therefore, ECQCLs show great applications potential in many fields. 
  • 431
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Old Quantum Theory
The old quantum theory is a collection of results from the years 1900–1925 which predate modern quantum mechanics. The theory was never complete or self-consistent, but was rather a set of heuristic corrections to classical mechanics. The theory is now understood as the semi-classical approximation to modern quantum mechanics. The main and final accomplishments of the old quantum theory were the determination of the modern form of the periodic table by Edmund Stoner and the Pauli Exclusion Principle which were both premised on the Arnold Sommerfeld enhancements to the Bohr model of the atom. The main tool of the old quantum theory was the Bohr–Sommerfeld quantization condition, a procedure for selecting out certain states of a classical system as allowed states: the system can then only exist in one of the allowed states and not in any other state.
  • 774
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Beta Function
In theoretical physics, specifically quantum field theory, a beta function, β(g), encodes the dependence of a coupling parameter, g, on the energy scale, μ, of a given physical process described by quantum field theory. It is defined as and, because of the underlying renormalization group, it has no explicit dependence on μ, so it only depends on μ implicitly through g. This dependence on the energy scale thus specified is known as the running of the coupling parameter, a fundamental feature of scale-dependence in quantum field theory, and its explicit computation is achievable through a variety of mathematical techniques.
  • 433
  • 22 Nov 2022
Biography
Hans-Peter Dürr
Hans-Peter Dürr (7 October 1929 – 18 May 2014) was a German physicist. He worked on nuclear and quantum physics, elementary particles and gravitation, epistemology, and philosophy, and he has advocated responsible scientific and energy policies.[1] In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his profound critique of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and his work to convert hi
  • 536
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Coherence
In physics, two wave sources are coherent if their frequency and waveform are identical. Coherence is an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally or spatially constant) interference. It contains several distinct concepts, which are limiting cases that never quite occur in reality but allow an understanding of the physics of waves, and has become a very important concept in quantum physics. More generally, coherence describes all properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a single wave, or between several waves or wave packets. Interference is the addition, in the mathematical sense, of wave functions. A single wave can interfere with itself, but this is still an addition of two waves (see Young's slits experiment). Constructive or destructive interference are limit cases, and two waves always interfere, even if the result of the addition is complicated or not remarkable. When interfering, two waves can add together to create a wave of greater amplitude than either one (constructive interference) or subtract from each other to create a wave of lesser amplitude than either one (destructive interference), depending on their relative phase. Two waves are said to be coherent if they have a constant relative phase. The amount of coherence can readily be measured by the interference visibility, which looks at the size of the interference fringes relative to the input waves (as the phase offset is varied); a precise mathematical definition of the degree of coherence is given by means of correlation functions. Spatial coherence describes the correlation (or predictable relationship) between waves at different points in space, either lateral or longitudinal. Temporal coherence describes the correlation between waves observed at different moments in time. Both are observed in the Michelson–Morley experiment and Young's interference experiment. Once the fringes are obtained in the Michelson interferometer, when one of the mirrors is moved away gradually from the beam-splitter, the time for the beam to travel increases and the fringes become dull and finally disappear, showing temporal coherence. Similarly, in a double-slit experiment, if the space between the two slits is increased, the coherence dies gradually and finally the fringes disappear, showing spatial coherence. In both cases, the fringe amplitude slowly disappears, as the path difference increases past the coherence length.
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  • 16 Nov 2022
Biography
Valery Rubakov
Valery Anatolyevich Rubakov (Russian: Валерий Анатольевич Рубаков, born 16 February 1955 in Moscow, USSR) is a Russian theoretical physicist. His scientific interests include quantum field theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. He is affiliated with the Institute for Nuclear Research (INR) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Rubakov studied phys
  • 480
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Complementarity
In physics, complementarity is a conceptual aspect of quantum mechanics that Niels Bohr regarded as an essential feature of the theory. The complementarity principle holds that objects have certain pairs of complementary properties which cannot all be observed or measured simultaneously. An example of such a pair is position and momentum. Bohr considered one of the foundational truths of quantum mechanics to be the fact that setting up an experiment to measure one quantity of a pair, for instance the position of an electron, excludes the possibility of measuring the other, yet understanding both experiments is necessary to characterize the object under study. In Bohr's view, the behavior of atomic and subatomic objects cannot be separated from the measuring instruments that create the context in which the measured objects behave. Consequently, there is no "single picture" that unifies the results obtained in these different experimental contexts, and only the "totality of the phenomena" together can provide a completely informative description.
  • 528
  • 14 Nov 2022
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