Adventures in Phase Space

A little movie showing how different states look in phase space. The graphs were made in Mathematica, and I used Latex to do the writing. The whole thing was compiled in iMovie.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• physics
• quantum
• optics
• coherent
• states
• schroedinger
• cat
• wigner
• function
• mathematica

[ArjenDijksman]

Great animation. For the number states, don't you show superposition of states, e.g. for n=10, you draw in fact sum over |n>, where n=1->10?

[aggiebagle]

No, they are not superpositions. Each subsequent frame is just a different number state |n> from n=1->10.

[VannevarBush]

@lwanatt

Well, the underlying mathematics is basically linear algebra and linear operators and in physics (what this clip here is about) you use this in quantum mechanics, e.g. this notation here : I a > for a quantum-state "a" ,which is treated as a vector in an infinite dimensional vector-space.

[lwanatt]

what sort of mathematics is this? ive never seen most of those symbols.

[yishuihanly]

afa