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mavanhel
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So, today while doing my homework for statistical mechanics I was reading about the quantum linear oscillator in the textbook, "Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics" by Ashley H. Carter. In it, after discussing the quantized energy it says:
"Note that the energies are equally spaced and that the ground state has a 'zero-point' energy equal to [tex]\frac{hv}{2}[/tex]. The states are nondegenerate in that [tex]g_{j} = 1[/tex] for all [tex]j[/tex]."
The book gives no further clarification on this point as, but I was wondering why the degeneracy for this problem is one for all states.
This problem occurs at the beginning of chapter 15, "The Heat Capacity of a Diatomic Gas" and makes the following considerations:
This does not tell us anything about the degeneracy, so why is this system nondegenerate?
"Note that the energies are equally spaced and that the ground state has a 'zero-point' energy equal to [tex]\frac{hv}{2}[/tex]. The states are nondegenerate in that [tex]g_{j} = 1[/tex] for all [tex]j[/tex]."
The book gives no further clarification on this point as, but I was wondering why the degeneracy for this problem is one for all states.
This problem occurs at the beginning of chapter 15, "The Heat Capacity of a Diatomic Gas" and makes the following considerations:
- consider an assemply of N one-dimensional harmonic oscillators.
- The oscillators are loosely coupled (ie. small energy exchange between them).
- The oscillators are free to vibrate in one dimension freely.
This does not tell us anything about the degeneracy, so why is this system nondegenerate?