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In physics, quasiparticle refers to a group of discrete phenomena whose behaviour is characterised as that of a single particle in a system, including the effect the particle has on the system. It can be roughly defined as the combination of a particle and its influence on the local environment. The entire entity behaves somewhat like a single free particle, and it is most important in condensed matter physics, as it is one of the few known ways of simplifying the quantum mechanical many-body problem (and, thus, is applicable to any number of other manybody systems). The most well known quasiparticles are the so-called electron holes, which can be thought of as "missing electrons" (i.e., 'carriers' of positive charge, as opposed to electrons, carriers of negative charge), and phonons, which can be thought of as "packets of vibration".
Contents
[hide] 1 Description 2 Examples of quasiparticles and collective excitations 2.1 More common examples 2.2 More specialized examples 3 See also 4 References 5 External links 6 Further reading
Description
In the language of many-body quantum mechanics, a quasiparticle is a type of low-lying excited state of the system (a state possessing energy very close to the ground state energy) that is known as an elementary excitation. As a result of this closeness, most of the other low-lying excited states can be viewed as states in which multiple quasiparticles are present, because interactions between quasiparticles become negligible at sufficiently low temperatures. By investigating the properties of individual quasiparticles, it is possible to obtain a great deal of information about low-energy systems, including the flow properties and heat capacity. Most many-body systems possess two types of elementary excitations. The first type, the quasiparticles, correspond to single particles whose motions are modified by interactions with the other particles in the system. The second type of excitation corresponds to a collective motion of the system as a whole. These excitations are called collective modes, and they include phenomena such as zero sound, plasmons, and spin waves. The idea of quasiparticles originated in Lev Landau's theory of Fermi liquids, which was originally invented for studying liquid helium-3. For these systems a strong similarity exists between the notion of quasi-particle and dressed particles in quantum field theory. The dynamics of Landau's theory is defined by a kinetic equation of the mean-field type. A similar equation, the Vlasov equation, is valid for a plasma in the so-called plasma approximation. In the plasma approximation, charged particles are considered to be moving in the electromagnetic field collectively generated by all other particles, and hard collisions between the charged particles are neglected. When a kinetic equation of the mean-field type is a valid first-order description of a system, second-order corrections determine the entropy production, and generally take the form of a Boltzmann-type collision term, in which figure only "far collisions" between virtual particles. In other words, every type of mean-field kinetic equation, and in fact every mean-field theory, involves a quasi-particle concept. Note that the use of term quasiparticle seems to be ambiguous. Some authors use the term in order to distinguish them from real particles, others (including author of the above passage) to describe an excitation similar to a single particle excitation as opposed to a collective excitation. Both definitions mutually exclude each other as with the former definition collective excitations which are no "real" particles are considered to be quasiparticles. [citation needed] The problems arising from the collective nature of quasiparticles have also been discussed within the philosophy of science, notably in relation to the identity conditions of quasiparticles and whether or not they should be considered "real" by the standards of, for example, entity realism.[1][2]
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This section contains examples of quasiparticles and collective excitations. The first subsection below contains common ones that occur in a wide variety of materials under ordinary conditions; the second subsection contains examples that arise in particular, special contexts.
http://www.answers.com/topic/quasiparticle
1/2/2010