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    Group Theory: 1. Show That The Wave Equation For The Propagation of An Impulse at The Speed of Light C

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    This document contains a problem set on group theory. It includes problems about showing equations are covariant or invariant under transformations, determining if sets of elements and composition laws form groups, and proving the uniqueness of solutions to the Liouville equation.

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    Group Theory: 1. Show That The Wave Equation For The Propagation of An Impulse at The Speed of Light C

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    daegunlee
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    This document contains a problem set on group theory. It includes problems about showing equations are covariant or invariant under transformations, determining if sets of elements and composition laws form groups, and proving the uniqueness of solutions to the Liouville equation.

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    This document contains a problem set on group theory. It includes problems about showing equations are covariant or invariant under transformations, determining if sets of elements and composition laws form groups, and proving the uniqueness of solutions to the Liouville equation.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    25 views2 pages

    Group Theory: 1. Show That The Wave Equation For The Propagation of An Impulse at The Speed of Light C

    Uploaded by

    daegunlee
    This document contains a problem set on group theory. It includes problems about showing equations are covariant or invariant under transformations, determining if sets of elements and composition laws form groups, and proving the uniqueness of solutions to the Liouville equation.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Group Theory

    Problem Set 1 October 12, 2001

    Note: Problems marked with an asterisk are for Rapid Feedback; problems marked with a double asterisk are optional.

    1. Show that the wave equation for the propagation of an impulse at the speed of light c, 1 2u 2u 2u 2u = + 2 + 2, c2 t2 x2 y z is covariant under the Lorentz transformation x = (x vt), where = (1 v 2 /c2 )1/2 . 2. The Schr odinger equation for a free particle of mass m is i h h2 2 . = t 2m x2 y = y, z = z, t = t v x , c2

    Show that this equation is invariant to the global change of phase of the wavefunction: = ei , where is any real number. This is an example of an internal symmetry transformation, since it does not involve the space-time coordinates. According to Noethers theorem, this symmetry implies the existence of a conservation law. Show that the quantity |(x, t)|2 dx is independent of time for solutions of the free-particle Schr odinger equation. 3. Consider the following sets of elements and composition laws. Determine whether they are groups and, if not, identify which group property is violated. (a) The rational numbers, excluding zero, under multiplication. (b) The non-negative integers under addition. (c) The even integers under addition. (d) The nth roots of unity, i.e., e2mi/n , for m = 0, 1, . . . , n 1, under multiplication. (e) The set of integers under ordinary subtraction.

    4. The general form of the Liouville equation is d dy p(x) + q (x) + r(x) y = 0 dx dx where p, q and r are real-valued functions of x with p and r taking only positive values. The quantity is called the eigenvalue and the function y , called the eigenfunction, is assumed to be dened over an interval [a, b]. We take the boundary conditions to be y (a) = y (b) = 0 but the result derived below is also valid for more general boundary conditions. Notice that the Liouville equations contains the one-dimensional Schr odinger equation as a special case. Let u(x; ) and v (x; ) be the fundamental solutions of the Liouville equation, i.e. u and v are two linearly-independent solutions in terms of which all other solutions may be expressed (for a given value ). Then there are constants A and B which allow any solution y to be expressed as a linear combination of this fundamental set: y (x; ) = Au(x; ) + Bv (x; ) These constants are determined by requiring y (x; ) to satisfy the boundary conditions: y (a; ) = Au(a; ) + Bv (a; ) = 0 y (b; ) = Au(b; ) + Bv (b; ) = 0 Use this to show that the solution y (x; ) is unique, i.e., that there is one and only one solution corresponding to an eigenvalue of the Liouville equation.

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