PHYS 221 Modern Physics HW8 notes

04/01/2020

1 Special Relativity
We have gotten to the wonderful topic of Special Relativity and although some of it seems mind boggling
it actually is not. Special relativity is all about relating observations that are made by different observers
moving relative to each other. You actually have learned how to do that when the velocities in question are
much less compared to the speed of light (c = 3 × 108 m/s), that is called Galilean relativity. Let’s review
it real quick. Say we have two observers and observer one (O1 ) has a velocity ~v = (v1,x , v1,y , v1,z ) relative
to the ground. Observer two (O2 ) is stationary with respect to the ground. Their clocks are synced, they
are not rotated with respect to each other (their coordinate axes are parallel to each other) and at t = 0,
O1 ’s position in O2 ’s frame is given by the vector d~ = (dx , dy , dz ). We can immediately relate observations
(events happening at a position ~x and at a time t) made by the two observers which means this: O2 sees a
flash of light at time t and it’s at a location ~x1 = (x1 , y1 , z1 ). In O1 ’s frame

~x2 = d~ − ~x1 + ~v t,
(1)
t = t.

Think of it this way: if the seperation between the observers is d~ at t = 0, it will be d~ + ~v t at time t.
The rest is just vector addition/substraction. We also know how to figure out relative velocities as well, if a
car is moving with velocity ~v1 with respect to the ground and another car is moving at a velocity ~v2 with
respect to the ground, car 1 will be travelling at ~v1 − ~v2 with respect to car 2.
Special relativity postulates that the speed of light is the same for all observers, no matter what the
relative velocities are. If you are travelling at a speed v = 0.6c, you will still measure the speed of light to be
c. It also postulates that c is an upper bound on all velocities, only massless particles (photons, gravitons)
can travel at the speed of light. Anything with a mass, no matter how tiny, has to travel at a speed less
than the speed of light. It can travel at v = 0.9999999c but not c.
These two postulates lead to profound consequences. First of all, we have to change the way we add
velocities (we will come back to how we do that mathematically later). Another consequence is called relative
simultaneity which means events that happen at different locations but at the same time in frame 1 (I will use
frame and observer interchangibly from now on) will happen at different times in another frame 2 if frame
2 is moving with respect to frame 1. Yet another consequence is time dilation which means events that
happen at the same location but at different times will be seperated by a longer time interval in a moving
frame. The final one is length contraction that is an object moving in an observer’s frame will appear shorter
than it’s length in a frame in which it is stationary. All of the consequences above come out because if we
want to keep the speed of light the same in different frames and if we want to make sure c is the absolute
upper bound for velocities, we have to change the way we relate different frames. I’m not going to derive
the transformation laws but just state them. Say we have two frames (observers) S, S 0 and S 0 is moving
with a velocity v in the x-direction with respect to S and their positions coincided at t = 0. The Lorentz

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transformations that tell us how to relate observations made in S to S 0 are as follows:
x0 = γv (x − vt),
v
t0 = γv (− 2 x + t),
c
y 0 = y,
(2)
z 0 = z,
1
γv = q .
v2
1− c2

The above equations describe this situation. An event happened at time t and location (x, y, z) in frame S.
The same event happened at time t0 and at a location (x0 , y 0 , z 0 ) in frame S 0 . What about velocities? Let’s
revisit the same frames S, S 0 as above: S 0 is moving with velocity v in the x-direction with respect to S.
Suppose an object is moving with velocity u0 in the S 0 frame, it’s velocity u in the S frame is given by:
u0 + v
u= 0
1 + uc2v
(3)
u−v
u0 =
1 − uv
c2

The second equation in (3) describes the reverse situation, an object is moving with velocity u in S, S 0 would
measure it’s velocity to be u0 .
Using (2), we can figure out mathematical expressions for time dilation and length contraction. Suppose
we have a stick which is at rest (not moving) in frame S and it’s length in frame S (rest length in it’s rest
frame) is L. Let’s now suppose frame S is moving in the direction of the stick with respect to frame S 0 with
velocity v. S 0 would measure the length of the stick to be:
L
L0 = , γv is defined in (2). (4)
γv
Let’s move on the time dilation. Let’s use the same frames S, S 0 with relative velocity v as before. Suppose
there’s a clock at rest that ticks and each tick is seperated by time interval ∆t0 as measured by an observer
in frame S 0 and suppose the observer S can clearly hear the ticks. In the S 0 frame those ticks would be
seperated by a time interval:
∆t = γv ∆t0 . (5)
The above equation is what is meant by the phrase ‘moving clocks run slower’.

1.1 Problem solving strageties

• If there are two events happening in one frame, clearly identify the location and the time of each event.
Events can come in many forms: flashes of light, a particle being detected etc.
• Always label different frames and be consistent with the labelling. S1 sees a flash of light at distance
x1 and time t2 , S2 sees the same flash of light at distance x2 and time t2 etc.
• Figure out the relative velocity between two frames because you’ll need it for Lorentz transformations,
time dilation, length contraction, velocity addition
• An object moving with velocity v in a frame S is itself a frame. You can always imagine an observer
‘sitting on’ that object. That frame is called the rest frame, it is the frame in which the object is at
rest.
• Knowledge from physics 1 apply: if an object is moving with velocity v in a frame S, it will cover a
distance x = vt in time t.

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 • Length contraction can be applied not only to objects but to distances between points.
• Check your work: velocities cannot exceed c, if you find such an answer you are clearly wrong.

2 Electrons in energy bands

I’m gonna keep this section short. A band structure is a way of relating the energy E of the electron to it’s
wavenumber k. In materials, there are several energy bands, think of these energy levels. Let’s label these
energy bands as E1 (k), E2 (k), . . .. An electron in the first energy band E1 with a wavenumber k1 will have
an energy E1 (k1 ) and an electron with wavenumber k2 in the same energy band will have an energy E1 (k2 )
etc.
The electron group velocity v(k) is
1 dE
v(k) = . (6)
h̄ dk
where E is a function of k, it could refer to an energy band E1 (k) for example.
The effective mass of an electron is
1 d2 E
m? (k) = 2 . (7)
h̄ dk 2
The effective mass describes how an electron in an energy band would respond to external forces.

3 Fermi Energy, momentum etc.

We’ve discussed this for the last homework but as a reminder:
N ∝ V kf3
N/V ∝ kf3
3
N/V ∝ kf2
2 (8)
Ef ∝ (N/V ) 3
Ef ∝ kf2
3
N/V ∝ Ef2 .