The propagation constant of a sinusoidal electromagnetic wave is a measure of the change undergone by the amplitude and phase of the wave as it propagates in a given direction. The quantity being measured can be the voltage, the current in a circuit, or a field vector such as electric field strength or flux density. The propagation constant itself measures the dimensionless change in magnitude or phase per unit length. In the context of two-port networks and their cascades, propagation constant measures the change undergone by the source quantity as it propagates from one port to the next.
In particle physics, bremsstrahlung is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typically an electron by an atomic nucleus. The moving particle loses kinetic energy, which is converted into radiation, thus satisfying the law of conservation of energy. The term is also used to refer to the process of producing the radiation. Bremsstrahlung has a continuous spectrum, which becomes more intense and whose peak intensity shifts toward higher frequencies as the change of the energy of the decelerated particles increases.
In mechanics and geometry, the 3D rotation group, often denoted SO(3), is the group of all rotations about the origin of three-dimensional Euclidean space under the operation of composition.
In probability theory, the Borel–Kolmogorov paradox is a paradox relating to conditional probability with respect to an event of probability zero. It is named after Émile Borel and Andrey Kolmogorov.
In mathematics, and especially differential geometry and gauge theory, a connection is a device that defines a notion of parallel transport on the bundle; that is, a way to "connect" or identify fibers over nearby points. A principal G-connection on a principal G-bundle over a smooth manifold is a particular type of connection which is compatible with the action of the group .
In multivariable calculus, the directional derivative measures the rate at which a function changes in a particular direction at a given point.
The Gell-Mann matrices, developed by Murray Gell-Mann, are a set of eight linearly independent 3×3 traceless Hermitian matrices used in the study of the strong interaction in particle physics. They span the Lie algebra of the SU(3) group in the defining representation.
In physics, a wave vector is a vector used in describing a wave, with a typical unit being cycle per metre. It has a magnitude and direction. Its magnitude is the wavenumber of the wave, and its direction is perpendicular to the wavefront. In isotropic media, this is also the direction of wave propagation.
In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the propagator is a function that specifies the probability amplitude for a particle to travel from one place to another in a given period of time, or to travel with a certain energy and momentum. In Feynman diagrams, which serve to calculate the rate of collisions in quantum field theory, virtual particles contribute their propagator to the rate of the scattering event described by the respective diagram. Propagators may also be viewed as the inverse of the wave operator appropriate to the particle, and are, therefore, often called (causal) Green's functions.
In particle physics, the Klein–Nishina formula gives the differential cross section of photons scattered from a single free electron, calculated in the lowest order of quantum electrodynamics. It was first derived in 1928 by Oskar Klein and Yoshio Nishina, constituting one of the first successful applications of the Dirac equation. The formula describes both the Thomson scattering of low energy photons and the Compton scattering of high energy photons, showing that the total cross section and expected deflection angle decrease with increasing photon energy.
In functional analysis, the Hille–Yosida theorem characterizes the generators of strongly continuous one-parameter semigroups of linear operators on Banach spaces. It is sometimes stated for the special case of contraction semigroups, with the general case being called the Feller–Miyadera–Phillips theorem. The contraction semigroup case is widely used in the theory of Markov processes. In other scenarios, the closely related Lumer–Phillips theorem is often more useful in determining whether a given operator generates a strongly continuous contraction semigroup. The theorem is named after the mathematicians Einar Hille and Kōsaku Yosida who independently discovered the result around 1948.
In mathematical analysis, a C0-semigroup, also known as a strongly continuous one-parameter semigroup, is a generalization of the exponential function. Just as exponential functions provide solutions of scalar linear constant coefficient ordinary differential equations, strongly continuous semigroups provide solutions of linear constant coefficient ordinary differential equations in Banach spaces. Such differential equations in Banach spaces arise from e.g. delay differential equations and partial differential equations.
Instantaneous phase and frequency are important concepts in signal processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying functions. The instantaneous phase (also known as local phase or simply phase) of a complex-valued function s(t), is the real-valued function:
In mathematics, the Weyl character formula in representation theory describes the characters of irreducible representations of compact Lie groups in terms of their highest weights. It was proved by Hermann Weyl. There is a closely related formula for the character of an irreducible representation of a semisimple Lie algebra. In Weyl's approach to the representation theory of connected compact Lie groups, the proof of the character formula is a key step in proving that every dominant integral element actually arises as the highest weight of some irreducible representation. Important consequences of the character formula are the Weyl dimension formula and the Kostant multiplicity formula.
Photon polarization is the quantum mechanical description of the classical polarized sinusoidal plane electromagnetic wave. An individual photon can be described as having right or left circular polarization, or a superposition of the two. Equivalently, a photon can be described as having horizontal or vertical linear polarization, or a superposition of the two.
In mathematics, the Schur orthogonality relations, which were proven by Issai Schur through Schur's lemma, express a central fact about representations of finite groups. They admit a generalization to the case of compact groups in general, and in particular compact Lie groups, such as the rotation group SO(3).
In optics, the Fraunhofer diffraction equation is used to model the diffraction of waves when the diffraction pattern is viewed at a long distance from the diffracting object, and also when it is viewed at the focal plane of an imaging lens.
In mathematics, singular integral operators of convolution type are the singular integral operators that arise on Rn and Tn through convolution by distributions; equivalently they are the singular integral operators that commute with translations. The classical examples in harmonic analysis are the harmonic conjugation operator on the circle, the Hilbert transform on the circle and the real line, the Beurling transform in the complex plane and the Riesz transforms in Euclidean space. The continuity of these operators on L2 is evident because the Fourier transform converts them into multiplication operators. Continuity on Lp spaces was first established by Marcel Riesz. The classical techniques include the use of Poisson integrals, interpolation theory and the Hardy–Littlewood maximal function. For more general operators, fundamental new techniques, introduced by Alberto Calderón and Antoni Zygmund in 1952, were developed by a number of authors to give general criteria for continuity on Lp spaces. This article explains the theory for the classical operators and sketches the subsequent general theory.
In probability theory, an interacting particle system (IPS) is a stochastic process on some configuration space given by a site space, a countably-infinite-order graph and a local state space, a compact metric space . More precisely IPS are continuous-time Markov jump processes describing the collective behavior of stochastically interacting components. IPS are the continuous-time analogue of stochastic cellular automata.
Symmetries in quantum mechanics describe features of spacetime and particles which are unchanged under some transformation, in the context of quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, and with applications in the mathematical formulation of the standard model and condensed matter physics. In general, symmetry in physics, invariance, and conservation laws, are fundamentally important constraints for formulating physical theories and models. In practice, they are powerful methods for solving problems and predicting what can happen. While conservation laws do not always give the answer to the problem directly, they form the correct constraints and the first steps to solving a multitude of problems. In application, understanding symmetries can also provide insights on the eigenstates that can be expected. For example, the existence of degenerate states can be inferred by the presence of non commuting symmetry operators or that the non degenerate states are also eigenvectors of symmetry operators.
