Quantum harmonic oscillatorThe quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary smooth potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point, it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, it is one of the few quantum-mechanical systems for which an exact, analytical solution is known.
Creation and annihilation operatorsCreation operators and annihilation operators are mathematical operators that have widespread applications in quantum mechanics, notably in the study of quantum harmonic oscillators and many-particle systems. An annihilation operator (usually denoted ) lowers the number of particles in a given state by one. A creation operator (usually denoted ) increases the number of particles in a given state by one, and it is the adjoint of the annihilation operator.
Heat equationIn mathematics and physics, the heat equation is a certain partial differential equation. Solutions of the heat equation are sometimes known as caloric functions. The theory of the heat equation was first developed by Joseph Fourier in 1822 for the purpose of modeling how a quantity such as heat diffuses through a given region. As the prototypical parabolic partial differential equation, the heat equation is among the most widely studied topics in pure mathematics, and its analysis is regarded as fundamental to the broader field of partial differential equations.
Riemann sumIn mathematics, a Riemann sum is a certain kind of approximation of an integral by a finite sum. It is named after nineteenth century German mathematician Bernhard Riemann. One very common application is approximating the area of functions or lines on a graph, but also the length of curves and other approximations. The sum is calculated by partitioning the region into shapes (rectangles, trapezoids, parabolas, or cubics) that together form a region that is similar to the region being measured, then calculating the area for each of these shapes, and finally adding all of these small areas together.
IntegralIn mathematics, an integral is the continuous analog of a sum, which is used to calculate areas, volumes, and their generalizations. Integration, the process of computing an integral, is one of the two fundamental operations of calculus, the other being differentiation. Integration started as a method to solve problems in mathematics and physics, such as finding the area under a curve, or determining displacement from velocity. Today integration is used in a wide variety of scientific fields.
Harmonic oscillatorIn classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system that, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force F proportional to the displacement x: where k is a positive constant. If F is the only force acting on the system, the system is called a simple harmonic oscillator, and it undergoes simple harmonic motion: sinusoidal oscillations about the equilibrium point, with a constant amplitude and a constant frequency (which does not depend on the amplitude).
Wigner–Weyl transformIn quantum mechanics, the Wigner–Weyl transform or Weyl–Wigner transform (after Hermann Weyl and Eugene Wigner) is the invertible mapping between functions in the quantum phase space formulation and Hilbert space operators in the Schrödinger picture. Often the mapping from functions on phase space to operators is called the Weyl transform or Weyl quantization, whereas the inverse mapping, from operators to functions on phase space, is called the Wigner transform.
Riemann–Stieltjes integralIn mathematics, the Riemann–Stieltjes integral is a generalization of the Riemann integral, named after Bernhard Riemann and Thomas Joannes Stieltjes. The definition of this integral was first published in 1894 by Stieltjes. It serves as an instructive and useful precursor of the Lebesgue integral, and an invaluable tool in unifying equivalent forms of statistical theorems that apply to discrete and continuous probability.
Estimation of covariance matricesIn statistics, sometimes the covariance matrix of a multivariate random variable is not known but has to be estimated. Estimation of covariance matrices then deals with the question of how to approximate the actual covariance matrix on the basis of a sample from the multivariate distribution. Simple cases, where observations are complete, can be dealt with by using the sample covariance matrix.
Wigner semicircle distributionThe Wigner semicircle distribution, named after the physicist Eugene Wigner, is the probability distribution on [−R, R] whose probability density function f is a scaled semicircle (i.e., a semi-ellipse) centered at (0, 0): for −R ≤ x ≤ R, and f(x) = 0 if |x| > R. The parameter R is commonly referred to as the "radius" parameter of the distribution. The Wigner distribution also coincides with a scaled beta distribution. That is, if Y is a beta-distributed random variable with parameters α = β = 3/2, then the random variable X = 2RY – R exhibits a Wigner semicircle distribution with radius R.
