Questions tagged [physics]
For questions about mathematical problems arising from physics, the natural science studying general properties of matter, radiation and energy.
194 questions
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Approximate solutions to $x''(t)=-cx + f(t)x$
I recently studied a problem which involved two particles joined by a harmonic spring moving in a potential and through some manipulation, I obtained the equation
$x''(t) = -\omega^2x + f(t)x$,
where $...
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wave speed and travelling wave
I have seen a lot of work has been done in the context of travelling wave. For example the work of McKenna and Chen in Journal of Differential Equations Volume 136, Issue 2, 20 May 1997, Pages 325-355....
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What is the predictive power of each object in QFT, and how are they related? [closed]
My background is not in physics or mathematical physics, so this question is mostly out of ignorance, and probably easily known to experts.
Basic Setup
You begin with a spacetime $M$. (Minkowski in ...
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Can the equation of motion with friction be written as Euler-Lagrange equation, and does it have a quantum version?
My (non-expert) impression is that many physically important equations of motion can be obtained as Euler-Lagrange equations. For example in quantum fields theories and in quantum mechanics quantum ...
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A soft introduction to physics for mathematicians who don't know the first thing about physics
There have been similar questions on mathoverflow, but the answers always gave some advanced introduction to the mathematics of quantum field theory, or string theory and so forth. While those may be ...
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Some details about relationship between central charges and second cohomology group of the Lie algebra
S. Weinberg in his book "The quantum theory of fields" talks about central charge that appear in Lie algebra of a given Lie group. To be more precise, on page 83 in the book, he computes the ...
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Are causally isomorphic spacetimes Wick-related?
Take the time-orientable spacetimes $(M_1,g_1)$ and $(M_2,g_2)$ that are locally(to be clarified below) Wick-related and both are globally Wick-rotatable(to be clarified below) to the same Riemannian ...
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Formula involving Wigner's 3j symbols and integration over irreducible representations of SU(2)
$\DeclareMathOperator\SU{SU}$In some calculations, I saw the following formula
$$\int_{\SU(2)}\,\mathrm{d}g\,D^{j_{1}}_{m_{1}n_{1}}(g)D^{j_{2}}_{m_{2}n_{2}}(g)D^{j_{3}}_{m_{3}n_{3}}(g)=(-1)^{j_{1}+j_{...
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Is the topological dimension of spacetime fixed for causally isomorphic spacetimes?
Suppose time-oriented spacetimes $(M_1 , g_1)$ and $(M_2, g_2)$ are not homeomorphic under their manifold topologies $\mathcal{M}_1$ and $\mathcal{M}_2$ respectively.
The Lorentzian metrics $g_1$ and $...
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Order isomorphism + manifold homeomorphism => path topology homeomorphism?
Suppose time-oriented spacetimes $(M_1 , g_1)$ and $(M_2, g_2)$ are homeomorphic under their manifold topologies $\mathcal{M}_1$ and $\mathcal{M}_2$ respectively.
Let's call this map $\phi: (M_1, \...
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Can the Causal Structure recover the manifold topology for non-chronological spacetimes?
Given a time-oriented spacetime $(M,g)$, a binary relation $\ll$ can be defined on this spacetime where $p \ll q$ for $p, q \in M$ if and only if there exists a time-like path connecting $p$ and $q$.
...
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inclusion of von Neumann algebras implies reversing inequality of its modular operators
I'm working with von Neumann algebras and I stumbled with this statement in a work of Borchers (1999)
Since $\mathcal N \subseteq \mathcal M$, it follows by standard arguments that $\Delta_{\mathcal ...
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Why/does 'low-dimension' topology end with dimension 4? [duplicate]
Put another way, assuming it is somewhat fair to say that we (not I, but those who know better--part of my question is whether my stated assumption is in fact warranted) have in some sense a ...
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Flux through a Mobius strip
A friend of mine asked me what is the flux of the electric field (or any vector field like
$$
\vec r=(x,y,z)\mapsto \frac{\vec r}{|r|^3}
$$ where $|r|=(x^2+y^2+z^2)^{1/2}$) through a Mobius strip. It ...
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I'm looking for the NLab page on particle species
This is just a reference request.
I came across an NLab page on particle species described as certain vector bundles. But I can't seem to find it again when I searched recently.
If someone can point ...
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Hilbert's sixth problem and QFT description
The Wikipedia entry on Hilbert's sixth problem about QFT description is “Since the 1960s, following the work of Arthur Wightman and Rudolf Haag, modern quantum field theory can also be considered ...
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Motivation and physical interpretation of the Laplace transform
Concerning the one-sided Laplace transform,
$$\mathcal{L}\{f\}(s) = \int_0^\infty f(t)e^{-st} dt$$
what is a motivation to come up with that formula? I am particularly interested in "physical&...
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What kind of Lagrangians can we have?
In any physics book I've read the Lagrangian is introuced as as a functional whose critical points govern the dynamics of the system. It is then usually shown that a finite collection of non-...
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Inverse square-law as a positive definite kernel?
Newtons law for gravity states that:
$$F_{12} = \frac{G m_1 m_2} {|x_1-x_2|^2}$$
The function :
$$k(x,y):=\exp(-| x-y|^2)$$
is known to be a positive definite function, called the RBF-kernel.
It ...
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Interpretation and validity of modified Heisenberg uncertainty principle in a metric context? [closed]
Considering the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states $\Delta x \cdot \Delta p \geq h$, I've explored a modified version by computing $(\Delta x + 1)(\Delta p + 1) \geq \Delta x \cdot \Delta ...
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Mathematical explanation of the failure to quantize gravity naively
One often hears in popular explanations of the failure to find a "Grand Unified Theory" that "Gravity goes off to infinity, but cutting off the edges gives us wrong answers", and other similar ...
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How are spatial coordinate systems in physics defined?
Grothendieck once asked "What is a meter?" (https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2006/08/letter_from_grothendieck.html). This innocent sounding question, made me to think about how ...
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Temporal evolution of a globally hyperbolic spacetime
Any globally hyperbolic spacetime can be assigned a global function of time as Hawking has demonstrated for stably causal spacetime. (Any globally hyperbolic spacetime is also stably causal).
For ...
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Qualitative values between two electrons in an atom or how to interpret these values?
This question is a little bit trying to understand physics through geometry of simplex:
Let $E_{i,j}$ be the ionization energy in times the number of hydrogen ionization energy for an element with ...
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On critical reviews of Hawking's lecture "Gödel and the end of the universe"
The search for a neat Theory of Everything (ToE) which unifies the entire set of fundamental forces of the universe (as well as the rules which govern dark energy, dark matter and anti-matter realms) ...
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What is this three dimensional curve that looks like an infinity sign called?
What is this three dimensional curve that looks like an infinity sign called? (Is there a known parametric equation for it?)
It was generated with this Sagemath - script, where you can zoom in 3d in ...
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Is there any physics theory which is similar to these analogies?
Since I am doing this little "research" project on my spare time and in my physical neighborhood there are not many people to discuss these ideas, I wanted to share with you a small point of ...
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A RKHS interpretation of the Rydberg formula for hydrogen and an application for physics?
I was thinking if it is possible to define an inner product between two small physical objects with a positive definite kernel and was led to look at the Rydberg formula:
The Rydberg formula for ...
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Biot-Savart-like integral for a toroidal helix
The following problem originates from Physics, so I apologize if I will not use a rigorous mathematical jargon.
Let us consider a toroidal helix parametrized as follows:
$$
x=(R+r\cos(n\phi))\cos(\phi)...
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When exactly and why did matrix multiplication become a part of the undergraduate curriculum?
The story about Heisenberg inventing matrices and matrix multiplication in 1925 is very well known and well documented. A few weeks later, Born and Jordan read this work and recognized matrix ...
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calculating a double limit
We have the following term:
$$ (e^{-a h}+e^{-b h})^n / 2^n$$
Now we take the limit:
$$ h\to 0, n\to \infty $$
What relation of $h$ and $n$ must be satisfied for the following limit to hold?
$$\lim_{h\...
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Interesting question about the Thomson problem for arbitrary number of electrons
This question is crossposted from here I believe this is a pretty hard question and so I decided to repost the question in the Math Overflow forum. If there is something wrong with doing this, I am ...
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Applications of maximal surfaces in Lorentz spaces
I have been working on minimal surfaces, only recently learnt about maximal surfaces and "maxfaces" in Lorentz spaces.
I can clearly see the mathematical motivations. But I wonder if zero-...
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How does a Masters student of math learn physics by self?
I am a Masters student of math interested in physics. When I was an undergraduate, I took the introductory course of physics, but it is just slightly harder than high school physics course. To be ...
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Mathematical difference between solitons and traveling waves for a non-linear dispersive PDE
I see many mathematicians conflating the definitions of traveling waves and solitons, and I am unable to understand, from a mathematical point of view, the differences between these two types of ...
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Mathematical characterization of gravitational geons as reference request, and their properties as main question
I've edited (ten days ago) a question on Physics Stack Exchange, this Mathematical characterization of gravitational geons, post with identifier 726281 the users of the site were kind adding in the ...
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How to smoothly interpolate gravitational field between trajectories in high dimension?
I'm looking for the adequate numerical interpolation technique to solve the following problem. This is probably trivial for physicists who study gravitational fields, but I didn't find clear answers ...
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D'Alembert's Principle: rigorous formulation using notions from modern differential geometry
Is there a rigorous definition of D'Alembert's principle of virtual dynamic work in the language of differential geometry? Some questions I'm hoping to answer are:
How to view the configuration space ...
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A question about Roger Penrose's spin networks and mathematical formalization?
Let $a,b,c$ be "units" in the spin network.
Then there are there are the following three requirements to fulfill (according to the relevant Wikipedia entry):
$a,b,c \in \mathbb{N}$
Triangle ...
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Harmonic function in infinite domain in $\mathbb{R}^3$, constant on the boundary and decaying as $1/r^2$
EDIT: Let $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^3$ be a bounded domain with smooth connected boundary. Let $f\colon \mathbb{R}^3\backslash \Omega \to \mathbb{R}$ be a continuous function which is harmonic in $\...
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polynomial approximation of hypergeometric function 2F1
I have the following function $T(k_1,k_2)$ resulting from multiphoton transition matrix elements calculations:
$T(k_1,k_2)=\gamma^{-k_2}\sum_{j=0}^{k_1}(j+2)_{l+1}\binom{k_1}{j}(k_1+1)_3(\gamma-1)^{j}{...
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Particles sent into the same direction with uniformly distributed speed
Fix a positive integer $n$. Every second, a particle is sent along a straight line from a fixed position in a fixed direction, at a random integer speed chosen uniformly in $\{1,\ldots, n\}$ meters ...
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Examples of ODEs with complex constant coefficients and applications to physics?
This question is asked on stackexchange: Are there examples for ODEs with complex coefficients with applications in physics?
but received no answers. I am reposting it here on the hope that it catches ...
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How to calculate the integral of a product of a spherical Hankel function with associated Legendre polynomials
From numerical experiments in Mathematica, I have found the following expression for the integral:
$$
\int_{-1}^{1}h_{n}^{(1)}\left(\sqrt{a^{2}+b^{2}+2ab\tau}\right)P_{n}^{m}\left(\frac{a\tau+b}{\sqrt{...
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Literature for gauge field theory on the lattice in geometrical formulation
I have found an article by Huebschmann, Rudolph and Schmidt about "A Gauge Model for Quantum Mechanics on a Stratified Space" and I am very interested in this subject, but I don't have any ...
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Why are discreteness and smoothness in physics inversed with respect to geometry?
In a closed (say differentiable) Riemannian manifold you see only continuous features when looking at small neighbourhoods of points. From afar,
discrete features appear ((co)homology, closed ...
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On mathematical studies of the Mpemba effect
Since the days of Aristotle and Descartes, it has been known that under certain circumstances warm water freezes faster than cold water. This effect is now commonly known as the Mpemba effect, named ...
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Are square configurations the only critical points of the energy on the circle?
$\newcommand{\S}{\mathbb{S}^1}$
$\newcommand{\la}{\lambda}$Let$$M=\{(x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4) \in (\S)^4\,\, |\,\, \text{ all the } x_i \, \text{ are distinct}\} $$
Define $E:M \to \mathbb{R}$ by
$$E(x_1,x_2,...
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Superspace derivation of supersymmetric non-linear sigma model in Supersolutions by Deligne and Freed
I am having a little trouble understanding passage from the linear to the non-linear sigma model in Section 4.1 of Supersolutions by Deligne and Freed. Most of my confusion comes down to the ...
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Maxwell equations as Euler-Lagrange equation without electromagnetic potential
In (mathematical) physics many equations of motion can be interpreted as Euler-Lagrange (EL) equations. The Maxwell equation for electromagnetic (EM) field (say in vacuum and in absence of charges) ...
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