How to Change Between Unit Systems w/ ##c \ne 1, \hbar \ne 1, G \ne 1##

  • Context: Undergrad 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Haorong Wu
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Change Systems Unit
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the conversion between different unit systems, specifically nature or geometrized units, and the challenges of translating results back to conventional units when constants such as ##c##, ##\hbar##, and ##G## are not equal to one. The context includes analysis of a specific paper that presents equations with differing dimensional outcomes.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions how to revert results from geometrized units back to normal units, particularly when constants are not normalized to one.
  • Another participant requests a reference for the paper being discussed, indicating a need for source verification.
  • A reference is provided to a specific paper, which includes a discussion of unit choices and equations that do not seem to match, raising concerns about omitted steps in the authors' logic.
  • Participants note that the paper's equations yield different dimensions, suggesting that the Schwarzschild radius may have been introduced to reconcile these differences.
  • One participant expresses uncertainty about the correctness of their dimensional analysis method and speculates that there may be errors in the authors' calculations regarding the extra factor in the equations.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the correctness of the authors' methods or the dimensional analysis. There are multiple viewpoints regarding the interpretation of the equations and the potential errors in the paper.

Contextual Notes

There are limitations in the discussion regarding the clarity of the authors' steps in the paper and the assumptions made in dimensional analysis. The specific nature of the equations and their dimensional outcomes remains unresolved.

Haorong Wu
Messages
419
Reaction score
90
TL;DR
How to change a result from a special unit system back to the normal unit system?
If we use the nature units or the geometrized units, how could we transfer the final result back to the normal units with ##c \ne 1, \hbar \ne 1, G \ne 1##? I know I coule analysis its dimension to multiply them back.

But what about other units system? For example, in a recent paper, the Lagrangian density is given by $$ \mathcal{L}=-(1-\frac m r) \dot t^2+(1- \frac m r)^{-1} \dot r ^2 + r^2 (\dot \theta ^2 +\sin ^2 \theta \dot \phi ^2).$$and ##m=2GM## is the Schwarzschild radius, ##G## is the gravitational constant, and the units are such that ##m=1##.

In the end, the paper give a result that ##O=- \frac {8i a^2} {z_R} (x^2-y^2)## where ##a## is a scaling parameter, ##z_R## is the rayleigh range.

But following this equation, the author gives another equation ##O=- \frac {i9ma^2} {z_R} (x^2-y^2)## where ##m## is the schwarzschild radius of the sun. It seems that the author have transferred the result back to the normal units and there is an extra factor ##\frac {9m} {8}##. But I could not see how to derive it.

I have sent a email to the author, and havn't got replies. I hope maybe some friends here would give me some advice. Thanks!
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Haorong Wu said:
in a recent paper

Please give a reference.
 
PeterDonis said:
Please give a reference.
Hi, @PeterDonis . It is

Exirifard, Qasem, Eric Culf, and Ebrahim Karimi. "Towards Communication in a Curved Spacetime Geometry." arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.04217 (2020).

It can be downloaded from https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.04217.pdf

In page 11, after Eq. (S76), it mentions that the units are chosen such that ##m=1##.

Then in page 18, Eq. (S120) gives the expression for operator ##O##. This equation together with Eq. (S112) do not match with the following equation (S123). There is some extra factor where the schwarzschild radius of the sun pops out.
 
Haorong Wu said:
Exirifard, Qasem, Eric Culf, and Ebrahim Karimi. "Towards Communication in a Curved Spacetime Geometry." arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.04217 (2020).

Thanks for the reference. On an initial look, it does seem like quite a few steps in their logic are left out. I have not had time to read through it closely enough to work out the missing steps and see whether they match the conclusions the paper is claiming.
 
PeterDonis said:
Thanks for the reference. On an initial look, it does seem like quite a few steps in their logic are left out. I have not had time to read through it closely enough to work out the missing steps and see whether they match the conclusions the paper is claiming.
Thanks for your time, @PeterDonis .

In my second look, I analyze the dimensions of the equations. The first one gives the dimension of ##[m]^{-1}## while the second one is ##1##, so maybe it just insert the schwarzschild radius with dimension of ##[m]## to match the dimensions of the two equations.

As for the factor, I think the author may have some errors in the calculations.

However, I am not sure whether this method of dimension analysis is correct.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 26 ·
Replies
26
Views
4K
  • · Replies 85 ·
3
Replies
85
Views
3K
  • · Replies 8 ·
Replies
8
Views
2K
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
2K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • · Replies 43 ·
2
Replies
43
Views
5K
  • · Replies 12 ·
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • · Replies 15 ·
Replies
15
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
4K