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Quantum force induced on a partition wall in a harmonic potential

T Fülöp1 and I Tsutsui2

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Boundary effects in quantum mechanics are examined by considering a partition wall inserted at the centre of a harmonic oscillator system. We put an equal number of particles on both sides of the impenetrable wall keeping the system under finite temperatures. When the wall admits distinct boundary conditions on the two sides, then a net force is induced on the wall. We study the temperature behaviour of the induced force both analytically and numerically under the combination of the Dirichlet and the Neumann conditions, and determine its scaling property for two statistical cases of the particles: fermions and bosons. We find that the force has a nonvanishing limit at zero temperature T = 0 and exhibits scalings characteristic to the statistics of the particles. We also see that for higher temperatures the force decreases according to 1/\sqrt{T}, in sharp contrast to the case of the infinite potential well where it diverges according to \sqrt{T}. The results suggest that, if such a nontrivial partition wall can be realized, it may be used as a probe to examine the profile of the potentials and the statistics of the particles involved.


PACS

03.65.Ge Solutions of wave equations: bound states

05.30.Fk Fermion systems and electron gas

05.30.Jp Boson systems

03.65.Fd Algebraic methods

02.10.Ud Linear algebra

02.60.Lj Ordinary and partial differential equations; boundary value problems

MSC

15A18 Eigenvalues, singular values, and eigenvectors

81Qxx General mathematical topics and methods in quantum theory

81Rxx Groups and algebras in quantum theory

Subjects

Quantum gases, liquids and solids

Mathematical physics

Computational physics

Statistical physics and nonlinear systems

Quantum information and quantum mechanics

Dates

Issue 47 (27 November 2009)

Received 16 June 2009, in final form 24 September 2009

Published 29 October 2009



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