Brownian Motion in an External Field Revisited
In many interesting physical examples, the partition function is divergent, as first pointed out in 1924 by Fermi (for the hydrogen-atom case). Thus, the usual toolbox of statistical mechanics becomes unavailable, notwithstanding the well-known fact that the pertinent system may appear to be in a th...
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
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| Formato: | Articulo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2021
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/119316 |
| Aporte de: |
| Sumario: | In many interesting physical examples, the partition function is divergent, as first pointed out in 1924 by Fermi (for the hydrogen-atom case). Thus, the usual toolbox of statistical mechanics becomes unavailable, notwithstanding the well-known fact that the pertinent system may appear to be in a thermal steady state. We tackle and overcome these difficulties hereby appeal to firmly established but not too well-known mathematical recipes and obtain finite values for a typical divergent partition function, that of a Brownian particle in an external field. This allows not only for calculating thermodynamic observables of interest, but for also instantiating other kinds of statistical mechanics’ novelties. |
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