Day: January 2, 2016

Scalar field creation operator commutator

January 2, 2016 math and physics play, phy2403, scalar field

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In [1] it is stated that the creation operators of eq. 2.78

\begin{equation}\label{eqn:scalarFieldCreationOpCommutator:20}
\alpha_k = \inv{2} \int \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi)^3} \lr{
\phi(x,0) + \frac{i}{\omega_k} \partial_0 \phi(x,0)
}
e^{-i \Bk \cdot \Bx }
\end{equation}

associated with field operator \( \phi \) commute. Let’s verify that.

\begin{equation}\label{eqn:scalarFieldCreationOpCommutator:40}
\begin{aligned}
\antisymmetric{\alpha_k}{\alpha_m}
&=
\inv{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^6}
\int d^3 x d^3 y
e^{-i \Bk \cdot \Bx }
e^{-i \Bm \cdot \By }
\antisymmetric
{
\phi(x,0) + \frac{i}{\omega_k} \partial_0 \phi(x,0)
}
{
\phi(y,0) + \frac{i}{\omega_m} \partial_0 \phi(y,0)
} \\
&=
\frac{i}{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^6}
\int d^3 x d^3 y
e^{-i \Bk \cdot \Bx }
e^{-i \Bm \cdot \By }
\lr{
\antisymmetric{\phi(x,0)}{\inv{\omega_m} \partial_0 \phi(y,0)}
+
\antisymmetric{\inv{\omega_k} \partial_0 \phi(x,0)}{\phi(y,0)}
} \\
&=
\frac{i}{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^6}
\int d^3 x d^3 y
e^{-i \Bk \cdot \Bx }
e^{-i \Bm \cdot \By }
\lr{
\frac{i}{\omega_m} \delta^3(\Bx – \By)

\frac{i}{\omega_k} \delta^3(\Bx – \By)
} \\
&=
-\frac{1}{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^6}
\int d^3 x
e^{ -i (\Bk + \Bm) \cdot \Bx }
\lr{
\frac{1}{\omega_m}

\frac{1}{\omega_k}
} \\
&=
-\frac{1}{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^3}
\lr{
\frac{1}{\omega_m}

\frac{1}{\omega_k}
}
\delta^3(\Bk + \Bm) \\
&=
-\frac{1}{4}
\frac{1}{(2\pi)^3}
\lr{
\frac{1}{\omega_{\Abs{-\Bk}}}

\frac{1}{\omega_{\Abs{\Bk}}}
}
\delta^3(\Bk + \Bm) \\
&=
0.
\end{aligned}
\end{equation}

References

[1] Michael Luke. PHY2403F Lecture Notes: Quantum Field Theory, 2015. URL https://s3.amazonaws.com/piazza-resources/i87nj8g7yie7nh/ihdwuk7wva13qq/lecturenotes.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIEDNRLJ4AZKBW6HA&Expires=1451803428&Signature=IF6qOjlKqOYL01FwqT%2FGV6BSDb8%3D. [Online; accessed 02-Jan-2016].

provisional M.Eng study plan

January 2, 2016 Incoherent ramblings

I’m trying to plot out a potential sequence for the remainder of my M.Eng courses. Most of the physics courses only run in the fall, and I still have to take a few more engineering courses to meet the requirements for the program. The following sequence, starting with the courses I’ve taken or am now enrolled on, gets one interesting course into each time slot:

My plan for the rest of the program is currently:

 

I’m hoping that the ECE Introduction to Computational Electrodynamics course will run again, and if it does I’ll switch things up to accomodate it.