1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:01,270 PROFESSOR: All right. 2 00:00:01,270 --> 00:00:06,450 So that concludes the chapter, a big chapter in this course. 3 00:00:06,450 --> 00:00:11,410 It concludes time-dependent perturbation theory. 4 00:00:11,410 --> 00:00:15,520 The whole course is largely organized 5 00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:17,730 with approximation methods. 6 00:00:17,730 --> 00:00:21,070 We have done time-independent perturbation theory. 7 00:00:21,070 --> 00:00:24,710 We applied it to the hydrogen atom in detail. 8 00:00:24,710 --> 00:00:31,430 Then we did WKB, which is slowly varying things in space. 9 00:00:31,430 --> 00:00:34,490 Then we did time-dependent perturbation theory. 10 00:00:34,490 --> 00:00:36,850 It had many parts to it. 11 00:00:36,850 --> 00:00:39,920 It had Fermi's golden rule, atoms. 12 00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:44,630 It had just transitions in general. 13 00:00:44,630 --> 00:00:48,950 The next step would be adiabatic approximation, 14 00:00:48,950 --> 00:00:51,610 which is time-dependent changes but slow. 15 00:00:51,610 --> 00:00:56,730 This is the time analog of WKB. 16 00:00:56,730 --> 00:00:58,580 We're going to take a little break. 17 00:00:58,580 --> 00:01:02,540 And for half a lecture today and the full lecture 18 00:01:02,540 --> 00:01:05,000 next time, we're going to do particles 19 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,850 in electromagnetic fields. 20 00:01:07,850 --> 00:01:11,040 That's an important subject. 21 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:13,640 It will involve Landau levels and things 22 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:16,140 that you always hear about. 23 00:01:16,140 --> 00:01:20,990 And it will be useful for some of the things we've done. 24 00:01:20,990 --> 00:01:25,530 We've had a little exposure to it with the Pauli equation. 25 00:01:25,530 --> 00:01:28,820 You may remember the Dirac and Pauli equation that 26 00:01:28,820 --> 00:01:30,660 had this electromagnetic field. 27 00:01:30,660 --> 00:01:32,840 So now we're going to take seriously 28 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:37,700 the electromagnetic fields and study how they interact 29 00:01:37,700 --> 00:01:38,810 with quantum mechanics. 30 00:01:38,810 --> 00:01:43,920 And there's a lot of very interesting and beautiful ideas 31 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:46,020 having to do with gauge invariance 32 00:01:46,020 --> 00:01:50,030 and why potentials are important. 33 00:01:50,030 --> 00:01:52,880 Charged particles in electromagnetic fields. 34 00:01:52,880 --> 00:02:03,236 So charged particles in EM fields. 35 00:02:10,630 --> 00:02:13,330 So what is our useful problem? 36 00:02:13,330 --> 00:02:18,550 You have a particle with mass m, now charge q. 37 00:02:18,550 --> 00:02:23,500 And finally, there's an electric field and a magnetic field. 38 00:02:23,500 --> 00:02:25,760 And there's going to be interactions between them. 39 00:02:30,030 --> 00:02:31,340 So there's E and B. 40 00:02:31,340 --> 00:02:33,780 And you've gone through this transition. 41 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,340 Probably, you've been told in electromagnetism something 42 00:02:40,340 --> 00:02:42,080 along these lines. 43 00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:44,910 There is this E and B fields. 44 00:02:44,910 --> 00:02:47,400 And those are the physical fields. 45 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:51,980 These are the things that do stuff on charges and particles. 46 00:02:51,980 --> 00:02:56,070 And there is this mathematical entities that can help you, 47 00:02:56,070 --> 00:02:58,790 which are potentials, that allow you 48 00:02:58,790 --> 00:03:02,780 to rewrite these fields in terms of these quantities, 49 00:03:02,780 --> 00:03:03,770 potentials. 50 00:03:03,770 --> 00:03:06,560 And they're practical to solve the equation. 51 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:10,640 But the potentials are less physical than the fields, 52 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:13,160 because the potentials are ambiguous. 53 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,740 You can change the value of the potential 54 00:03:15,740 --> 00:03:17,880 without changing the electric field. 55 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:19,220 You can do things like that. 56 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:29,750 Well, that is somewhat misleading, put charitably. 57 00:03:29,750 --> 00:03:34,550 It's a pretty wrong viewpoint, actually. 58 00:03:34,550 --> 00:03:38,090 As we will discover and understand here, 59 00:03:38,090 --> 00:03:43,700 the potentials are really more important than the fields. 60 00:03:43,700 --> 00:03:47,850 Quantum mechanics couples to the potentials. 61 00:03:47,850 --> 00:03:51,710 And as an afterthought, if couples to the fields, 62 00:03:51,710 --> 00:03:54,290 because it couples to the potentials. 63 00:03:54,290 --> 00:03:59,480 But even the definition of an electromagnetic field, 64 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:01,280 at the end of the day-- nowadays, 65 00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:06,770 we really understand it as a definition of potentials. 66 00:04:06,770 --> 00:04:09,320 And I'll try to explain that. 67 00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:14,210 This is pretty important if you try to describe anything 68 00:04:14,210 --> 00:04:16,880 that has topological content. 69 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:20,300 Most of the times, if you're considering open 70 00:04:20,300 --> 00:04:25,100 space, open Minkowsky space, it doesn't make much difference 71 00:04:25,100 --> 00:04:27,500 whether you take the electric and magnetic field to be 72 00:04:27,500 --> 00:04:29,510 fundamental or the potentials. 73 00:04:29,510 --> 00:04:33,710 But as soon as you consider anything topological, 74 00:04:33,710 --> 00:04:38,000 a sample that lifts on a toroidal surface, that's 75 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,030 a topological space, then, if you 76 00:04:41,030 --> 00:04:42,770 don't think about potentials, you 77 00:04:42,770 --> 00:04:45,920 could be absolutely wrong, completely wrong. 78 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:49,310 Or if you have an extra dimension, and in 79 00:04:49,310 --> 00:04:52,700 many theories of physics, you could have extra dimensions-- 80 00:04:52,700 --> 00:04:55,430 and you think about the electric and magnetic fields 81 00:04:55,430 --> 00:04:57,830 then, if you don't think of potentials, 82 00:04:57,830 --> 00:04:59,850 you can be quite wrong. 83 00:04:59,850 --> 00:05:02,480 So let's explain what's happening 84 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:04,280 with these potentials. 85 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:07,250 Basically, it all starts from the idea 86 00:05:07,250 --> 00:05:14,500 that you have a Maxwell's equation del dot B equal 0. 87 00:05:14,500 --> 00:05:17,500 And this is solved, it is said, by setting 88 00:05:17,500 --> 00:05:24,400 B equal to the curl of A. And indeed, 89 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:30,550 if B is equal to the curl of A, this equation is satisfied. 90 00:05:30,550 --> 00:05:37,150 The other equation that is relevant is this Faraday's 91 00:05:37,150 --> 00:05:55,060 law, which if B is already curl of A, you have that curl of E 92 00:05:55,060 --> 00:06:05,200 plus 1 over C da/dt is equal to 0. 93 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:10,790 You see, I substitute B here equal curl of A. 94 00:06:10,790 --> 00:06:16,330 I commute the order of derivatives, the dt the curl. 95 00:06:16,330 --> 00:06:20,640 And this gives me this equation. 96 00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:24,660 From this equation, we say that anything that has 0 curl 97 00:06:24,660 --> 00:06:27,090 is the gradient of something. 98 00:06:27,090 --> 00:06:34,950 And therefore, we say that E plus the 1 over c da/dt 99 00:06:34,950 --> 00:06:41,520 is the gradient of phi, from where 100 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:43,590 we find the second equation, which 101 00:06:43,590 --> 00:06:49,890 says that E can be obtained as minus the gradient of phi 102 00:06:49,890 --> 00:06:55,010 minus 1 over c da/dt. 103 00:06:55,010 --> 00:06:56,190 I hope I have it right. 104 00:06:56,190 --> 00:06:56,690 Yes. 105 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:04,320 So this is the origin of the potentials. 106 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:05,760 You've seen that. 107 00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:07,530 That's how they explain, probably, 108 00:07:07,530 --> 00:07:11,130 to you why you have potentials. 109 00:07:11,130 --> 00:07:13,785 And indeed, this is so far so good. 110 00:07:17,050 --> 00:07:20,640 But now, there is a freedom with this potentials which are 111 00:07:20,640 --> 00:07:23,180 called gauge transformations. 112 00:07:23,180 --> 00:07:26,850 So what are the gauge transformations? 113 00:07:26,850 --> 00:07:33,210 It's the possibility of changing the potentials without changing 114 00:07:33,210 --> 00:07:36,130 the electromagnetic fields. 115 00:07:36,130 --> 00:07:44,370 So for example, since the curl of the grad of anything is 0-- 116 00:07:44,370 --> 00:07:47,820 it's almost like curl cross curl is 0. 117 00:07:47,820 --> 00:07:52,740 This is the curl of the grad of anything is 0. 118 00:07:52,740 --> 00:07:58,760 You can change A into a different A 119 00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:05,210 that we'll call A prime, given by A plus gradient 120 00:08:05,210 --> 00:08:08,640 of a function lambda. 121 00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:13,640 And this will not change the value of the magnetic field B, 122 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:18,620 because if you calculate the magnetic field B, 123 00:08:18,620 --> 00:08:23,390 the new magnetic field associated to the new vector 124 00:08:23,390 --> 00:08:31,220 potential is equal to curl of A prime. 125 00:08:31,220 --> 00:08:35,179 But that's equal to curl of A. And that's 126 00:08:35,179 --> 00:08:41,990 equal to the old B due to the old magnetic vector potential. 127 00:08:41,990 --> 00:08:49,770 So the vector potential has changed, but B the not change. 128 00:08:49,770 --> 00:08:54,560 On the other hand, if you change the vector potential 129 00:08:54,560 --> 00:08:59,690 by something like this, now it can affect the E. 130 00:08:59,690 --> 00:09:07,940 But if simultaneously you change phi, E will be left unchanged. 131 00:09:07,940 --> 00:09:12,020 So what should you do to phi? 132 00:09:12,020 --> 00:09:14,930 So this is the first one for A. 133 00:09:14,930 --> 00:09:17,360 If you want to keep E unchanged, you 134 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:24,740 define phi prime equal to phi minus 1 over c d lambda/dt. 135 00:09:30,780 --> 00:09:33,815 And then when you compute the new E, 136 00:09:33,815 --> 00:09:37,440 you would do the gradient of the new phi, which 137 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:40,290 will be the gradient of the old phi, 138 00:09:40,290 --> 00:09:45,540 but an extra term, which would be plus 1 over C 139 00:09:45,540 --> 00:09:50,720 d/dt of gradient of lambda. 140 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:53,860 And it will cancel with the minus 1 141 00:09:53,860 --> 00:09:59,020 over C d/dt of the gradient of lambda. 142 00:09:59,020 --> 00:10:08,110 So by changing A and phi in this way, B and E are unchanged. 143 00:10:08,110 --> 00:10:11,470 So I can summarize this gauge invariance statement 144 00:10:11,470 --> 00:10:18,490 by saying that the new electric field due to due to phi 145 00:10:18,490 --> 00:10:25,810 prime and A prime is equal to the electric field due to phi 146 00:10:25,810 --> 00:10:33,910 and A. And the magnetic field new due to phi prime 147 00:10:33,910 --> 00:10:38,620 and A prime is equal to the magnetic field 148 00:10:38,620 --> 00:10:47,780 due to phi and A. 149 00:10:47,780 --> 00:10:53,130 This is lifted to a principal. 150 00:10:56,570 --> 00:11:00,530 So we started describing electromagnetic fields 151 00:11:00,530 --> 00:11:06,130 with E and B. We can describe them with A and phi. 152 00:11:06,130 --> 00:11:09,220 And let's take that seriously, because we'll 153 00:11:09,220 --> 00:11:11,850 need it for quantum mechanics. 154 00:11:11,850 --> 00:11:17,880 And we'll add now the extra important physical assumption, 155 00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:25,420 which is that phi prime A prime is 156 00:11:25,420 --> 00:11:48,160 really equivalent, physically equivalent to phi A. 157 00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:53,660 And an electromagnetic field configuration, 158 00:11:53,660 --> 00:11:58,100 as a mathematician will say, is the equivalent classes 159 00:11:58,100 --> 00:12:00,090 of potentials. 160 00:12:00,090 --> 00:12:04,640 So you want to describe an electromagnetic field? 161 00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:05,900 I ask one of you. 162 00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:09,860 And you tell me what is phi and what is A. I ask somebody else, 163 00:12:09,860 --> 00:12:12,050 they give me another phi and another A. 164 00:12:12,050 --> 00:12:14,150 And you say, they look different. 165 00:12:14,150 --> 00:12:15,650 But they may be the same. 166 00:12:15,650 --> 00:12:21,990 They are the same if they are related by some lambda. 167 00:12:24,695 --> 00:12:27,680 I'll write it. 168 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:41,360 If there exists a lambda such that they are gauge 169 00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:45,880 transforms of each other. 170 00:12:52,110 --> 00:12:58,970 So before you say, you tell me what the E is and what B is, 171 00:12:58,970 --> 00:13:00,970 and they have to agree. 172 00:13:00,970 --> 00:13:04,190 And you say, that's preferable, because if E and B are 173 00:13:04,190 --> 00:13:05,390 the same, they agree. 174 00:13:05,390 --> 00:13:07,280 That's it. 175 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:11,420 Why do we go through A and phi? 176 00:13:11,420 --> 00:13:12,800 They don't have to agree. 177 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:14,750 And they can be the same, because if they're 178 00:13:14,750 --> 00:13:19,340 related with some lambda, they are the same. 179 00:13:19,340 --> 00:13:23,060 We seem to be going backwards into a lot more complicated 180 00:13:23,060 --> 00:13:24,300 situation. 181 00:13:24,300 --> 00:13:25,580 But that's what we need. 182 00:13:25,580 --> 00:13:31,040 And that's what the physics tells you is really going on. 183 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:36,170 So some particular things that are curious can happen now. 184 00:13:36,170 --> 00:13:37,730 And they're very curious. 185 00:13:37,730 --> 00:13:39,620 And there are examples. 186 00:13:39,620 --> 00:13:41,285 And we'll see some of those examples. 187 00:13:44,540 --> 00:13:45,740 So curious effects. 188 00:13:50,840 --> 00:14:06,300 1, suppose phi and A and phi prime and A prime 189 00:14:06,300 --> 00:14:19,360 give the same E and B. So you and your peer editor 190 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:26,260 came up with some phi and A and phi prime and A prime. 191 00:14:26,260 --> 00:14:32,080 And they give the same E and B. Are you 192 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,990 and your peer editor on the hands 193 00:14:34,990 --> 00:14:38,560 of the same electromagnetic field configuration? 194 00:14:43,950 --> 00:14:45,920 Maybe but not obvious. 195 00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:48,170 In classical physics, you would say, yes. 196 00:14:48,170 --> 00:14:50,770 If they give you the same E and B, these are equivalent. 197 00:14:50,770 --> 00:14:55,730 No, now, you would have to show that there 198 00:14:55,730 --> 00:15:01,610 is some lambda so that they are gauge equivalent to each other. 199 00:15:01,610 --> 00:15:05,390 You see, the fact that they are gauge equivalent guarantees 200 00:15:05,390 --> 00:15:10,520 they give the same B and E. But if they give the same B and E, 201 00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:14,120 it may happen that you still cannot find the lambda that 202 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:19,220 relates them, because what you have to do is try to take 203 00:15:19,220 --> 00:15:22,280 your friend's A and your friend's phi, 204 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:24,950 then this is yours and yours, and now you have to find 205 00:15:24,950 --> 00:15:25,990 the lambda. 206 00:15:25,990 --> 00:15:28,650 And you have to solve a differential equation. 207 00:15:28,650 --> 00:15:31,880 What if you can't find the lambda? 208 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,790 They give the same E and B, but they're not 209 00:15:34,790 --> 00:15:38,050 gauge equivalent to each other. 210 00:15:38,050 --> 00:15:42,630 That means that you have different field configurations. 211 00:15:42,630 --> 00:15:44,370 The fact that E and B are the same 212 00:15:44,370 --> 00:15:49,570 doesn't mean they are the same electromagnetic fields. 213 00:15:49,570 --> 00:15:56,550 And this can happen if you have a little bit of topology. 214 00:15:56,550 --> 00:16:01,790 So suppose A and this give the same B field 215 00:16:01,790 --> 00:16:14,650 but are not related by a gauge transformation. 216 00:16:23,190 --> 00:16:29,700 Then these are inequivalent EM fields. 217 00:16:35,310 --> 00:16:38,020 They could have different quantum mechanics. 218 00:16:38,020 --> 00:16:39,460 And we will see that. 219 00:16:39,460 --> 00:16:44,340 So one example is what people call Wilson loops. 220 00:16:44,340 --> 00:16:49,170 Wilson loops correspond to some closed curve in space that you 221 00:16:49,170 --> 00:16:51,090 cannot contract. 222 00:16:51,090 --> 00:16:53,410 Of course, in Minkowski space, in this room, 223 00:16:53,410 --> 00:16:55,170 I can contract anything. 224 00:16:55,170 --> 00:16:57,360 But sometimes, if you live on a torus 225 00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:01,320 or your sample is on a sphere or something, 226 00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:04,230 you may not be able to contract the curve. 227 00:17:04,230 --> 00:17:09,990 Along that curve, you can put a vector potential 228 00:17:09,990 --> 00:17:13,560 that is pointing tangent to the curve all the time. 229 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:18,990 And it's a constant, a constant vector potential. 230 00:17:18,990 --> 00:17:25,380 That constant vector potential has 0 B and 0 electric field. 231 00:17:25,380 --> 00:17:29,460 But if that constant is small or that constant is big, 232 00:17:29,460 --> 00:17:30,660 it's inequivalent. 233 00:17:30,660 --> 00:17:32,880 You won't find the gauge transformation 234 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:35,340 that transforms each other. 235 00:17:35,340 --> 00:17:39,630 And therefore, those would be configurations 236 00:17:39,630 --> 00:17:44,730 of electromagnetic fields that give you the same E and B 237 00:17:44,730 --> 00:17:47,470 but are inequivalent. 238 00:17:47,470 --> 00:17:49,140 So that's the first curious effect. 239 00:17:49,140 --> 00:17:51,795 There is another curious effect. 240 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:02,140 And quantum mechanics is forcing you to do that. 241 00:18:02,140 --> 00:18:06,030 That's the main thing. 242 00:18:06,030 --> 00:18:12,120 So the second curious effect is, given 243 00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:29,336 an E and B that satisfy Maxwell's equation, 244 00:18:29,336 --> 00:18:40,430 are these allowed fields? 245 00:18:40,430 --> 00:18:45,160 So somebody gives you an E field and a B field. 246 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,500 And you say, OK, I'm going to check 247 00:18:47,500 --> 00:18:52,180 if these are possible physical electric and magnetic fields. 248 00:18:52,180 --> 00:18:56,620 And then you go and check Maxwell's equations. 249 00:18:56,620 --> 00:18:59,290 And Maxwell's equations work out. 250 00:18:59,290 --> 00:19:01,270 They're all satisfied. 251 00:19:01,270 --> 00:19:03,790 You say, OK, this is good. 252 00:19:03,790 --> 00:19:07,840 Those electric and magnetic fields are fine. 253 00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:10,810 Not so quick. 254 00:19:10,810 --> 00:19:15,010 To be sure those electric and magnetic fields are fine, 255 00:19:15,010 --> 00:19:19,600 you should give me a phi and an A that gives rise 256 00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:24,580 to them, because fundamentally, the electromagnetic fields are 257 00:19:24,580 --> 00:19:25,470 A and phi. 258 00:19:25,470 --> 00:19:29,840 And those you need anyway to do quantum mechanics with it. 259 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:31,960 So if you have an electromagnetic field and you 260 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,860 cannot do quantum mechanics with it, you would be suspicious. 261 00:19:35,860 --> 00:19:39,670 So you need to find phi and A. 262 00:19:39,670 --> 00:19:41,890 Are these allowed? 263 00:19:41,890 --> 00:19:57,910 Only if you can find a phi and A. And sometimes that can fail. 264 00:19:57,910 --> 00:19:59,390 On a torus again-- 265 00:20:05,170 --> 00:20:07,115 we've described in this course as circle 266 00:20:07,115 --> 00:20:14,810 as a line x identified with x plus L. So here is L. 267 00:20:14,810 --> 00:20:16,000 And you identify. 268 00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:24,030 A torus can be done by taking a piece of the plane 269 00:20:24,030 --> 00:20:27,570 and identifying this line with that and this line 270 00:20:27,570 --> 00:20:29,190 with this line. 271 00:20:29,190 --> 00:20:31,680 So you glue this, form a cylinder, 272 00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:35,480 and then you glue the other ends. 273 00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:39,530 On a torus, you can put a constant magnetic field. 274 00:20:39,530 --> 00:20:44,370 A constant magnetic fields satisfies Maxwell's equations. 275 00:20:44,370 --> 00:20:47,690 So you say, oh, so you can put any constant magnetic field 276 00:20:47,690 --> 00:20:49,160 in a torus. 277 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:50,430 Wrong. 278 00:20:50,430 --> 00:20:54,680 The vector potential has trouble existing. 279 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:59,630 And only for particular values of the magnetic field, 280 00:20:59,630 --> 00:21:02,270 there's a consistent vector potential. 281 00:21:02,270 --> 00:21:07,020 You get the quantization of the flux of the magnetic field. 282 00:21:07,020 --> 00:21:09,635 So that's another example, an E and a B. 283 00:21:09,635 --> 00:21:12,770 A constant magnetic field on a torus 284 00:21:12,770 --> 00:21:16,400 satisfies every Maxwell equation you may want to do. 285 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:21,970 But still, it's not a valid electromagnetic field, 286 00:21:21,970 --> 00:21:27,700 because there's no A and phi that give rise to it. 287 00:21:27,700 --> 00:21:37,170 So those are our lessons in why we need the vector potentials 288 00:21:37,170 --> 00:21:40,990 to describe physics in quantum mechanics, 289 00:21:40,990 --> 00:21:43,150 electromagnetic physics. 290 00:21:43,150 --> 00:21:46,840 And then let's write, therefore, the Schrodinger 291 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:51,340 equation with the electromagnetic fields.