Assignment 7, PHYS 459/636, Due on December 4, 2023

Total points: [17] for all.

[6] Acoustic and optical phonons: Consider the 1D case with two atoms per unit cell. The
relevant information can be found in Lecture 19, slides 7-10. (At least in my computer the links
in Saurabh’s notes lead to not quite right places in the correct Lecture.)
a [1] What is the physical interpretation of A0 and B0?
b [2] For simplicity, consider the case with mA=mB=m, and focus on the modes with small k such
that ak≪1. What are A0 and B0 for the two branches?
c [2] Using your answer to (a) and the result in (b), please explain this figure:

In particular how do A0 and B0 determine if the oscillations are in phase or out of phase?
d [1] What would the limit of ak≪1 (or k→0) mean for the oscillation pattern across the full
system?

[8] Density of states of phonons: Consider the 1D system with the longitudinal phonon branch
with the dispersion relation




[1] What is the energy of a single phonon mode with momentum k?

[3] Assume that the system size is large enough to be able to treat k as continuous. Please
calculate the density of states (DOS) for the phonons, starting from the delta-functions.
[2] Please plot and label clearly all the relevant points in the DOS of the phonons above.
[2] Using the expression for the DOS and assuming 2ℏκ/m ≪kBT, please calculate the total
energy of the phonon system and show that it is NkBT, where N is the number of atoms in the 1D
chain.
[3] The Pauli matrix diagonalization (one can do it without knowing about topology):
For the Hamiltonian H= σ⃗⋅B⃗ please prove that eigenvalues and eigenvectors indeed look like

Here angles belong to the polar coordinate system. Note that any 2×2 Hamiltonian could be
written in the above form. Thus you are proving the general form of eigenvectors for any
2×2 Hamiltonian!