TWO-DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM GAS S
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f .'..~«rf£^.« ;»*«4 I INSTITUTO DE FÍSICA TEÓRICA 1TT/P-17/9O TWO-DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM GAS a* R. Aldr ovandl* Instituto de Física Teóricas State Untversity oi 55o Paulo - UNESP Rúa Parriplcna 145 - 01405 -São.Pauio S? - Brazil s Abstract o ícter,!;cal itnprnstfcile perlicles '.n a 2-diíiieosior4! ccnfíg-jralisn serra fcrotá stetisti», Ihí&rír.a;i3'o beUv=eri bosons end . sy.iMügiric croups fte r.ein properties of ao ij^J jis cl su-;-. ^ are presèTiiâl Itw/ CD iaterpolôte U*e prepertiçs et t5so.is erd If i fr.s but cióssicai pyticles as a special case Restriction to 2 c .; *',ens prscVjfcs l4.T»tcü points but ori-jic-sías fl pecv! - . symmetry,responsible in particular for ths'icsrj , fi - boson ft.il iernt:on specific h£c:!S. o 0 * With perttel «uppyl cí CMr « Idex 11-31 370Uii'-.r 5^ .1fi!ôf«00 55ll36i4«? U£SP <• E?JA?£SP. tíí.MET 1.Introduction Quantum mechanics of a given system is controlled Dy the group of classes of closed loops (the fundamental group) or Us configuration space ill and, of course, statistical mechanics will follow suit. The configuration space of a system of N identical particles will have a non-trivial fundamental group [2], that is, will be multiply connected Let M be the configuration space of each particle and consider the N set M • |x • (xt, x2,.... xN)), the cartesian product of manifold M by itself N tifiics. MN will be the configuration space of a gas of N distinguishable particles contained in fi n is usually a 3- dimensional Euclidean box whose volume V is taken to infinity at the thermodynamica! limit. When the particles are indistinguishable, two 1 N points x and x of M are equivalent if the sets (x,, x2,..., xN) and (x',, x'2, . , x'N) differ only by a permutation, a transformation belonging to me symmetric group SN, and tne configuration space N becomes the çjotient M /SN When M is inched Euclidean, and so N topoiogically trivial, the funaamentai group, indicated Tijln /5N), is N just SH. Space M is then the universal covering of the configuration space and tne N-particle wavefunction will belong in the earner space of some representation of 5N When the particles are also impenetrable, coincident positions for them must be excluded. This is done by defining the set 0f(- {<x,, x2,..., xN) sucn that x, = xJ for some ij) and taking its complement in MN, N FNM« M \DN . (I.I) This would u the configuration space for N distinct impenetrable particles. The fundamental group of this space, Pw • ITI[FH r,J, is the pure úraiü group 13) it is tn particular the fundamental group ícr me configuration spaa of a classical hard-sphere gas. Consider further the particles to be indistinguishable. Let B^tt be the space obtained by identifying all equivalent points, the quotient by SN: N BNM-FNM/SN-If1 \DN)/SN . (1.2) The íuuüamenuii group of this configuration space, tK •liilBNttj, is the full braid group, or simply braid group. bumming up, FNM is the configuration space for a gas of N Impenetrable particles. BNM is the configuration space for a gas of N impenetrable and identical particles and the pure and full braid groups are the respective fundamental groups of such spaces Quantization is to be performed on such highly complicated, multiply- connered space H). We shall see below that braid groups concern real, usual Draiai and that, because braids can be unwoven in spaces of three or more dimensions, all this Is of possible practical interest only for two-dimensional systems. The quotient of the full braid grojp by the pure braid group is the symmetric group: BN/PN-SN, (1.3) N When dimM>2, the braid groups are extensions by Ss of ITÍI(M)] . When M is itself topologically non-trivial, iT](ri) will be some discrete group When M is trivial, it reduces to the identity in the Euclidean 3 3N case M«E , JIi(M)-J, BN • SN, jr1lE XSNl - SN. The classes of loops, highly non-trivial on a punctured E2, become trivial in punctured E3, where each loop may be continuously wformed to a point. Consequently, for dimM i 3, statistical mechanics will be Just as usual, regulated by the symmetric group, with bosons and fermions. 3 The whole point is that this ts not forctDly the case for dim II-2. A gas at 2 dimensions may have a different statistics, governed by braid groups, a Oraid statistics. Such statistics ts expected to play a{ role in 2-dtmensional condensed matter physics phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and high temperature superconductivity 151 Braid statistics has been the object of htghy sophisticated analysts [6], in comparison to which our approach is undoubtedly naive, host treatments are concerned with 'particles* whose exotic statistics is due to their special structure, such as Wilczek s anyons [71 In reality, manifestations of such exotic statistics are to be expected as soon as Impenetrable particles are considered in two dimensions [8], whatever their internal structure (91 It is our contention that the first step In the understanding of a new statistics is to examine the corresponding ideal gas. That is what we intend to do here, taking into account the fact that impenetrability is enough to ensure the emergence of braid statistics. Such a free gas might come to model, up to interactions, the electron gas in superconductors, in which the electrons are confined to the surface. It is anyhow the starting point, to v/hich dynamical effects are to be added in a deeper analysis. Dynamics has been extensively studied, mainl/ in the line of Landau-Ginzburg models [10}. A complete knowledge of the ideal case will help to separate effects of dynamical nature from those of purely statistical origin. As the test way to introduce braid groups is through the symmetric groups, and also because these would anyhow regulate the case of interper.etrable particles, we start by recalling in 82 trie Ideal gas statistical mechanics as ruled by SN. The canonical partition function of a real gas of N particles is a certain SN-invariant polynomial, the cycle indicator polynomial. Furthermore, the symmetric group maintains a bookkeeping role even for braid statistics, as It counts the classical configurations in terms of which the quantum partition function is ultimately written. The adopted pedagogical tune seems unavoidable because we want to stress some aspects to be later adapted to the braid case, in particular, permutations are Introduced in a pictorial way specially convenient to generalization. The 2-dlmenslonal case exhibits some characteristic symmetries, leaciiny in pãUicüUr to the identity of boson and fcrmion specific heat, in thebosomc case, although ground state crowding or particles do occur at low enough temperatures, no lambda point Is found, so that transition must proceed smoothly. A more mathematical interpretation of the usual realization of wavefunctions In terms of distinguishable particles Is given in S3. It helps clarifying what happens when exchange symmetries distinct from SN are at work. We give a (necessarily very Incomplete) introduction to braids and their groups in S4 and proceed to study the corresponding statistical mechanics In SS. There is one braid statistics for each value of an angular parameter <p, with <p = O corresponding to bosons and <p c TI to fermions. As It might be expected, Intermediate values of <p leads to intermediate behavior of the physical quantities, but this "interpolation" goes through the classical case at <p • n/2, where a Boltzmmann gas comes out. Some final comments, Including a comparison to parastatlstics, are made in S 6. 2. Symmetric group statistics The role of the symmetric group ill] In Statistical Mechanics is best seen in the cluster decomposition [12) of the canonical partition function, which happens to be an Invariant polynomial of SN. in order to see it, let us start by shortly reviewing some well known facts about permutations. A general permutation P of particles labelled Xj,x2,..., xN.,,xN is usually indicated by P • I í1 Í2 "' Í""1 J1) and can always be decomposed into the product of disjoint cycles, particular tatl-bitlng permutations ot type (IJ2'.'.'.X'£)• TMS IS a cycle of length r, or at r-cycle it Is convenient [131 to attribute a variable tr to a cycle of length "r" and indicate the cycle structure of a permutation by the monomial O1?*1!3 ••• tVr • mean*n9 *hat lher* are vi 1" cycles, v2 2-cydes, etc. Permutations of the same cycle type, that Is, with the same set (Vj), go into each other under the action of any element of Sk they constitute conjugate classes. To all permutations of a fixed class will be attributed the same monomial above. In this sense, such monomials are invariants of the group 5N. The total number of permutations with such a fixed cycle configuration is N! —— . The N-variable generating function for these numbers Is the cycle Indicator polynomial [14] where the star (•) recalls that the summation takes place over the sets lv,) of ncn-negative Integers for wnicn Cycle indicator polynomials satisfy the relation [151 N n 2 ^N-mlt)) . (22) which may lead to recursion formulae when the tr's are known and will be useful later on. The canonical partition function oi a real non-relatlvlstlc gas of N particles contained in a d-dimenslonal volume V is a cycle indicator polynomial for the symmetric group 5N, with the V (combinatorially meaningless) variables tj * jbj TQ giving the contribution of the J-th order cluster integral: H CN( jb, ^ J (2.3) where p • 1/kT; X is the mean thermal wavelength, bj Is the J-th cluster Integral H6J.