Elementary Condensed Matter Physics Antonio H. Castro Neto January 3, 2003Chapter 1 Atoms and Molecules 1.1 Interactions in Isolated Atoms Tn crder to understand the properties of solids one has to be able to de- scribe their constituents and how they interact with each other, Solids are made out of arrays of atoms that ate composed of electrans, protons and neutrons. Elementary quantum mechanics describes very well the Dehavior of isolated atoms such as Hydrogen. Most of the properties of solids depend on the behaviar of electrons and protons. These are enti- ties that have opposite charge, a large mass difference (the mass of the proton, 7Mip, is approximately 1000 times the electron mass, me). and different spatial position in the atom. The nucleus occupies the center of the atom and its much smaller than the surrounding electronic cloud which is extended over large distances (1078 = Li) if compared with the mcleus size (10-m = 1 fm). Since the characteristic distances in solids are of order of a few A it is the electron who plays a major role on the properties of solids. The basic physics of atoms can be understood starting from the Hydrogen atom. The Hamiltonian that describes the Hydrogen atom is given by =, R__é 2mp * 2me FP—Tel (1) where pp (p.) is the momentum, rp (t.) the position of the proton (electron) and ¢ is the electric charge. Remember that in quantum 12 CHAPTER 1. ATOMS AND MOLECULES mechanics these quantities are operators that act on a Hilbert space of functions. Moreover, momentum and position are conjugated so that they obey commutation rules, namely, Lip, = thdig (1.2) where we have introduced the components of the vector as ¥ = (215202523) and P = (.,P2,Ps) (6iy = 1 if i= j and O otherwise is called the Kro- nocker delta). Moreover, the operators for the electron and proton commute among themselves since they are distinct from each other. The state of the system can be represented in terms of the positions of electron and proton by a bra |rp,te,de,0r) where o is the spin degree of freedom of each one of the particles. From basic quantum mechan ics one knows that protons and electrons have spin 1/2 and therefore are called fermions. In this case can only have two possible pro- Jections on a fixed axis, that is, up (ft) or down (J). Observe that although irp,te,0e0p) is a legitimate state of the problem and span the whole Hilbert space of solutions it does not represent an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian. ‘The reason for that is that the mementum op- erator which appears in the kinetic term of (1-1) does not commute with the position operator and therefore it induces transitions between states with different positions (that i, the electron and proten move around!) ‘As usual in any problem in quantum mechanics one has to find the basis that properly describe the system of interest. The obvious thing todo, as in classical mechanics, it is to transform the Hamiltonian (1-1) to the center of mass and relative coonlinate. In onder to do it we define R= $retre) r= rp-%, (1.3) which are the center of mass and relative coordinate of the system. In terms of these new coordinates the Hamiltonian becomes, where M = m, + my is the total mass and jx reduced mass of the system. Observe that since m, * 100m, we can