1 00:00:01,350 --> 00:00:02,800 PROFESSOR: So far, so good. 2 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:05,030 We've really calculated. 3 00:00:05,030 --> 00:00:06,310 And we could stop here. 4 00:00:06,310 --> 00:00:09,000 But there is a nice interpretation 5 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:14,460 of this Darwin term that gives you intuition 6 00:00:14,460 --> 00:00:17,610 as to what's really happening. 7 00:00:17,610 --> 00:00:22,110 See, when you look at these terms overall-- 8 00:00:22,110 --> 00:00:25,740 these interactions with this class-- 9 00:00:25,740 --> 00:00:29,610 you say, well, the kinetic energy was not relativistic. 10 00:00:29,610 --> 00:00:31,860 That gives rise to this term. 11 00:00:31,860 --> 00:00:35,280 There is a story for the spin orbit as well. 12 00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:38,490 We think of the proton-- 13 00:00:38,490 --> 00:00:40,020 creates an electric field. 14 00:00:40,020 --> 00:00:43,170 You, the electron, are moving around. 15 00:00:43,170 --> 00:00:46,680 As you move inside the static-electric field, 16 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:48,370 you see a magnetic field. 17 00:00:48,370 --> 00:00:52,080 The magnetic field interacts with your dipole moment 18 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:52,950 of the electron. 19 00:00:52,950 --> 00:00:55,060 That's the story here. 20 00:00:55,060 --> 00:00:57,140 So what's the story for this term? 21 00:00:57,140 --> 00:00:59,910 Where does it come from? 22 00:00:59,910 --> 00:01:03,240 What is the physics behind it? 23 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:05,970 That's what I want to discuss now. 24 00:01:09,810 --> 00:01:15,270 So the physics interpretation of the Darwin term 25 00:01:15,270 --> 00:01:24,120 is that the electron behaves not as 26 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:26,970 if it would be a point particle but as if it would be, 27 00:01:26,970 --> 00:01:32,430 kind of, a little ball where the charge is spread out. 28 00:01:32,430 --> 00:01:39,240 We know that any mechanical model of the electron, where 29 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:41,490 you think of it as a ball, the spinning 30 00:01:41,490 --> 00:01:42,930 doesn't work for the spin. 31 00:01:42,930 --> 00:01:48,060 But somehow, here, we can see that this extra correction 32 00:01:48,060 --> 00:01:50,220 to the energy is the correction that 33 00:01:50,220 --> 00:01:55,710 would appear if, somehow, the electron, instead of feeling 34 00:01:55,710 --> 00:01:59,790 the potential of the nucleus at one point, 35 00:01:59,790 --> 00:02:01,350 as if it would be a point particle, 36 00:02:01,350 --> 00:02:03,960 it's as if it would be spread. 37 00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:08,490 So let me make a drawing here. 38 00:02:08,490 --> 00:02:09,330 Here is the proton. 39 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:14,610 And it creates a potential. 40 00:02:14,610 --> 00:02:17,655 And we will put an electron at the point r. 41 00:02:23,425 --> 00:02:24,300 There's the electron. 42 00:02:24,300 --> 00:02:26,940 But now, we're going to think that this electron is really 43 00:02:26,940 --> 00:02:34,190 a cloud, like this. 44 00:02:39,170 --> 00:02:42,980 And the charge is distributed over there. 45 00:02:42,980 --> 00:02:46,340 And now, I'm going to try to estimate 46 00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:49,460 what happens to the potential energy 47 00:02:49,460 --> 00:02:51,970 if it's really behaving like that. 48 00:02:54,870 --> 00:02:59,600 So for that, I'm going to make another coordinate system 49 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:01,710 sort of starting here. 50 00:03:01,710 --> 00:03:03,330 I'm going to call the vector that 51 00:03:03,330 --> 00:03:08,760 goes to an arbitrary point here vector u. 52 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:12,600 So from the origin or center of this charge distribution, 53 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:14,460 we put the vector u. 54 00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:18,870 And then I have this vector over here, which is r plus u. 55 00:03:23,150 --> 00:03:29,840 And this u points to a little bit of charge, a little cubit 56 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:30,725 here, for example. 57 00:03:33,820 --> 00:03:38,250 So this is our setup. 58 00:03:38,250 --> 00:03:43,275 Now, the potential-- due to the proton-- 59 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:51,360 proton-- we have a potential V of r, 60 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:58,740 which is equal to minus the charge of the electron times 61 00:03:58,740 --> 00:04:02,340 the scalar potential, phi of r-- 62 00:04:02,340 --> 00:04:10,060 it's minus e times e over r, which is our familiar minus e 63 00:04:10,060 --> 00:04:12,070 squared over r. 64 00:04:12,070 --> 00:04:14,110 So the potential energy-- 65 00:04:14,110 --> 00:04:17,911 this is the potential energy. 66 00:04:17,911 --> 00:04:27,320 And so if you had a point particle-- 67 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:28,610 for a point particle-- 68 00:04:34,710 --> 00:04:41,040 you have that the proton creates a potential at a distance r. 69 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:42,870 You multiply by the charge. 70 00:04:42,870 --> 00:04:47,670 And you get the potential energy. 71 00:04:47,670 --> 00:04:53,500 So how do we do it a little more generally? 72 00:04:53,500 --> 00:04:58,555 I'm going to call this V tilde of r. 73 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:09,140 The true potential energy-- 74 00:05:09,140 --> 00:05:19,010 potential energy-- when the center of the electron is 75 00:05:19,010 --> 00:05:19,640 at r-- 76 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:32,090 electron at r. 77 00:05:32,090 --> 00:05:34,765 So what is the true potential energy 78 00:05:34,765 --> 00:05:36,980 when the center of the electron is at r? 79 00:05:36,980 --> 00:05:40,490 Well, I would have to do an integral 80 00:05:40,490 --> 00:05:48,240 over the electron of the little amount of charges 81 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:52,205 times the potential at those points. 82 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:01,990 For every piece of charge, I must 83 00:06:01,990 --> 00:06:06,430 multiply the charge times the potential generated 84 00:06:06,430 --> 00:06:07,990 by the proton. 85 00:06:07,990 --> 00:06:14,770 And that would give me the total energy of this electron 86 00:06:14,770 --> 00:06:18,500 in this potential, V of r. 87 00:06:18,500 --> 00:06:23,900 So let me use that terminology here. 88 00:06:23,900 --> 00:06:29,100 I will describe the charge density-- 89 00:06:29,100 --> 00:06:36,310 density-- rho of u-- 90 00:06:36,310 --> 00:06:42,040 the density of charge at a position given by a u vector. 91 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:49,160 I'll write it as minus e times rho 0 of u-- 92 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:50,690 a little bit of notation. 93 00:06:50,690 --> 00:06:55,610 I apologize, but it's necessary to do things cleanly. 94 00:06:55,610 --> 00:07:00,820 The charge density of the electron-- 95 00:07:00,820 --> 00:07:05,750 electron-- is given by rho of u minus e rho 0. 96 00:07:05,750 --> 00:07:10,340 And then it should be true that the integral 97 00:07:10,340 --> 00:07:21,740 over the electron of d cube u rho 0 of u is equal to 1. 98 00:07:21,740 --> 00:07:23,240 Look at that integral. 99 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:26,870 Why should it be equal to 1? 100 00:07:26,870 --> 00:07:31,820 It should be equal to 1, because then the integral of the charge 101 00:07:31,820 --> 00:07:32,960 density-- 102 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:39,630 the integral of this over all of space would be minus e times 1. 103 00:07:39,630 --> 00:07:42,830 And that's exactly what you expect. 104 00:07:42,830 --> 00:07:48,380 So rho 0 is a unit free-- 105 00:07:48,380 --> 00:07:53,390 well, 1 over length cubed is a charge-free quantity. 106 00:07:53,390 --> 00:07:58,600 The charge is carried by this constant over here. 107 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:03,340 So what happens then with this V of r? 108 00:08:03,340 --> 00:08:06,910 This V of r is the charge-- 109 00:08:06,910 --> 00:08:19,090 little charge q is d cubed u times rho of u times phi 110 00:08:19,090 --> 00:08:20,900 at r plus u. 111 00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:29,700 Look, the charge is this at some little element. 112 00:08:29,700 --> 00:08:33,919 And then the potential there is the potential at r plus u. 113 00:08:36,809 --> 00:08:39,510 So one more step-- 114 00:08:39,510 --> 00:08:51,560 V of r-- if you take from rho this extra minus e, 115 00:08:51,560 --> 00:08:57,290 minus e times phi of r is what we call 116 00:08:57,290 --> 00:09:01,400 the potential energy due to r. 117 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,780 So take the minus e out and append it 118 00:09:05,780 --> 00:09:13,900 to the capital Phi here, so that we have integral d cube u rho 119 00:09:13,900 --> 00:09:19,240 0 of u V of r plus u. 120 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:25,065 OK, this was our goal. 121 00:09:29,730 --> 00:09:33,530 It gives you the new energy-- 122 00:09:33,530 --> 00:09:39,320 the true potential energy of this electron 123 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:44,270 when this center is at r as the smearing 124 00:09:44,270 --> 00:09:48,920 of the potential energy of a point particle 125 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:51,650 smeared over the electron. 126 00:09:56,930 --> 00:10:02,230 So this is a formula that represents our intuition. 127 00:10:02,230 --> 00:10:04,780 And moreover, it has the rho 0 here 128 00:10:04,780 --> 00:10:08,770 that tells you the weight that you should apply at any point, 129 00:10:08,770 --> 00:10:13,370 because this rho 0 is proportional to the charge-- 130 00:10:13,370 --> 00:10:14,420 very good. 131 00:10:14,420 --> 00:10:15,680 We have a formula. 132 00:10:15,680 --> 00:10:20,030 But I was supposed to explain that term. 133 00:10:20,030 --> 00:10:22,260 And we have not explained it yet. 134 00:10:22,260 --> 00:10:24,470 But now, it's time to explain it. 135 00:10:24,470 --> 00:10:27,350 We're going to try to do a computation that 136 00:10:27,350 --> 00:10:29,330 helps us do that. 137 00:10:29,330 --> 00:10:33,890 The idea is that we're going to expand the potential 138 00:10:33,890 --> 00:10:39,830 around the point r and treat this as a small deviation 139 00:10:39,830 --> 00:10:44,330 because, after all, we expect this little ball that I drew 140 00:10:44,330 --> 00:10:46,970 big here for the purposes of illustration 141 00:10:46,970 --> 00:10:48,900 to be rather small. 142 00:10:48,900 --> 00:11:02,430 So let's write V of r plus u as V of r in Taylor series-- 143 00:11:02,430 --> 00:11:04,710 plus the next term is the derivative 144 00:11:04,710 --> 00:11:08,390 of V with respect to position evaluated 145 00:11:08,390 --> 00:11:13,030 at r multiplied by the deviation that you moved. 146 00:11:13,030 --> 00:11:27,160 So sum over i dv dx i evaluated at r times u i. 147 00:11:27,160 --> 00:11:31,610 This is the component of this vector u. 148 00:11:31,610 --> 00:11:35,030 That's the first term in the Taylor series. 149 00:11:35,030 --> 00:11:37,130 And we need one more-- 150 00:11:37,130 --> 00:11:49,625 plus 1/2 sum over i and j, d 2nd V vx i vx j evaluated 151 00:11:49,625 --> 00:11:52,820 at r ui uj. 152 00:11:55,940 --> 00:11:58,640 And then we have to integrate here. 153 00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:02,190 We substituted in here and integrate. 154 00:12:02,190 --> 00:12:09,560 So V tilde of r-- let's see what it is. 155 00:12:09,560 --> 00:12:12,210 Well, I can put this whole thing-- 156 00:12:12,210 --> 00:12:14,180 we don't want to write so much. 157 00:12:14,180 --> 00:12:18,280 So let's try to do it a little quick. 158 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:20,470 We're integrating over u. 159 00:12:20,470 --> 00:12:24,800 And here, let's think of the first term here. 160 00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:29,300 When you plug in the first term, this function of r 161 00:12:29,300 --> 00:12:30,830 has nothing to do with u. 162 00:12:30,830 --> 00:12:38,380 So it goes out and you get V of r times the integral d cube u 163 00:12:38,380 --> 00:12:39,800 rho 0 of u. 164 00:12:42,790 --> 00:12:49,160 For the next term in here, these derivatives 165 00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:52,490 are evaluated at r-- have nothing to do with u. 166 00:12:52,490 --> 00:12:53,660 They go out. 167 00:12:53,660 --> 00:13:05,770 So plus sum over I dv dx i of r integral d cube u 168 00:13:05,770 --> 00:13:09,210 rho 0 of u, ui. 169 00:13:12,530 --> 00:13:16,720 Last term-- these derivatives go out. 170 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:18,910 They're evaluated at r. 171 00:13:18,910 --> 00:13:20,450 They have nothing to do with you. 172 00:13:20,450 --> 00:13:29,140 So plus 1/2 sum over i and j d second V dx i dx 173 00:13:29,140 --> 00:13:40,430 j evaluated at r integral d cube u rho of u ui uj. 174 00:13:40,430 --> 00:13:42,985 OK-- all these terms! 175 00:13:47,620 --> 00:13:52,480 Happily we can interpret much of what we have here. 176 00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:57,445 So what is this first integral? 177 00:14:03,170 --> 00:14:10,070 V of r equals-- 178 00:14:10,070 --> 00:14:13,050 this integral is our normalization integral. 179 00:14:16,290 --> 00:14:18,520 Over here, that's equal to 1. 180 00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:22,050 So this is very nice. 181 00:14:22,050 --> 00:14:25,110 That's what you would expect that 182 00:14:25,110 --> 00:14:29,450 to first approximation, the total energy of the electron, 183 00:14:29,450 --> 00:14:31,200 when it is at r-- 184 00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,680 as if it would be a point particle at r. 185 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:38,670 Now, let's look at the next terms. 186 00:14:38,670 --> 00:14:44,970 Now, we will assume that the distribution of charge 187 00:14:44,970 --> 00:14:46,720 is spherically symmetric. 188 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:50,850 So that means that rho of u vector 189 00:14:50,850 --> 00:14:54,690 is actually a function rho 0 of u, 190 00:14:54,690 --> 00:15:00,560 where u is the length of the u vector. 191 00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:04,837 So it just depends on the distance from the point 192 00:15:04,837 --> 00:15:05,670 that you're looking. 193 00:15:05,670 --> 00:15:07,280 That's the charge. 194 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:11,390 Why would it be more complicated? 195 00:15:11,390 --> 00:15:17,450 If that is the case, if this is spherically symmetric, 196 00:15:17,450 --> 00:15:25,880 you can already see that these integrals would vanish, 197 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:30,350 because you're integrating the spherically symmetric quantity 198 00:15:30,350 --> 00:15:32,450 times a power of a coordinate. 199 00:15:32,450 --> 00:15:34,700 That's something you did in the homework 200 00:15:34,700 --> 00:15:37,760 as well for this Stark effect. 201 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:41,150 You realized that integrals of spherically symmetric functions 202 00:15:41,150 --> 00:15:44,610 then powers of x, y, and z-- well, they get 203 00:15:44,610 --> 00:15:47,030 killed, unless those are even powers. 204 00:15:47,030 --> 00:15:49,340 So this is an odd power. 205 00:15:49,340 --> 00:15:50,810 And that's 0. 206 00:15:50,810 --> 00:15:54,500 So this term is gone. 207 00:15:54,500 --> 00:16:02,420 And this integral is interesting as well. 208 00:16:02,420 --> 00:16:05,060 When you have a spherically symmetric quantity 209 00:16:05,060 --> 00:16:09,440 and you have i and j different, the integral would be 0. 210 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:12,320 It's like having a power of x and a power of y 211 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:13,860 in your homework. 212 00:16:13,860 --> 00:16:17,710 So if that integral would be 0, it would only be non-zero if i 213 00:16:17,710 --> 00:16:21,030 is equal to j-- the first component, for example-- 214 00:16:21,030 --> 00:16:23,600 1 u1 u1. 215 00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:28,940 But that integral would be the same as u2 u2 or u3 u3. 216 00:16:28,940 --> 00:16:32,630 So in fact, each of these integrals 217 00:16:32,630 --> 00:16:41,630 is proportional to delta i j, but equal to 1/3 218 00:16:41,630 --> 00:16:47,390 of the integral of d cube u rho of u-- 219 00:16:47,390 --> 00:16:51,600 I'll put the delta ij here-- 220 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:54,840 times u squared. 221 00:16:54,840 --> 00:17:00,510 u squared is-- u1 squared plus u2 squared plus u3 squared-- 222 00:17:00,510 --> 00:17:03,270 each one gives the same integral. 223 00:17:03,270 --> 00:17:08,380 Therefore, the result has a 1/3 in front. 224 00:17:08,380 --> 00:17:09,940 So what do we get? 225 00:17:09,940 --> 00:17:20,430 Plus 1/6-- and here, we get a big smile. 226 00:17:20,430 --> 00:17:20,970 Why? 227 00:17:20,970 --> 00:17:25,079 Because delta i j, with this thing, 228 00:17:25,079 --> 00:17:30,195 is the Laplacian of V evaluated at r. 229 00:17:30,195 --> 00:17:33,390 They have the same derivative summed. 230 00:17:33,390 --> 00:17:34,830 So what do we get here? 231 00:17:34,830 --> 00:17:41,920 1/6 of the Laplacian of V evaluated 232 00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:51,100 at r times the integral d cube u rho 0 of u u squared. 233 00:17:57,810 --> 00:18:02,700 Very nice-- already starting to look like what we wanted, 234 00:18:02,700 --> 00:18:05,040 a Laplacian. 235 00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:06,720 Can we do a little better? 236 00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:09,120 Yes, we can. 237 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:10,260 It's possible. 238 00:18:10,260 --> 00:18:17,070 Let's assume the charged particle has a size. 239 00:18:17,070 --> 00:18:30,330 So let's assume the electron is a ball of radius 240 00:18:30,330 --> 00:18:35,290 the Compton wavelength, which is h bar over mc. 241 00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:50,020 So that means rho 0 of u is non-zero when 242 00:18:50,020 --> 00:18:53,050 u is less than this lambda. 243 00:18:53,050 --> 00:18:57,940 And it's 0 when u is greater than this lambda. 244 00:18:57,940 --> 00:19:01,860 That's a ball-- some density up to there. 245 00:19:01,860 --> 00:19:04,280 And this must integrate to 1. 246 00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:11,710 So it's 1 over the volume of that ball, 4 pi lambda cubed 247 00:19:11,710 --> 00:19:12,415 over 3. 248 00:19:22,370 --> 00:19:23,385 Do this integral. 249 00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:34,750 This integral gives you, actually, 3/5 of lambda 250 00:19:34,750 --> 00:19:40,320 squared with that function. 251 00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:47,540 So the end result is that V tilde of r is equal to V of r. 252 00:19:51,100 --> 00:19:59,270 Plus 3/5 of this thing times that is 1/10 h 253 00:19:59,270 --> 00:20:08,080 squared m squared c squared Laplacian of V. 254 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,410 The new correction to the potential, when this mole came 255 00:20:11,410 --> 00:20:13,930 out to this 1/10-- 256 00:20:13,930 --> 00:20:16,600 that's pretty close, I must say. 257 00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:19,720 There's an 1/8 there. 258 00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:24,670 We assume the electron is a ball of size, the Compton 259 00:20:24,670 --> 00:20:27,970 wavelength of the electron. 260 00:20:27,970 --> 00:20:29,830 It's a very rough assumption. 261 00:20:29,830 --> 00:20:35,170 So even to see the number not coming off by a factor of 100 262 00:20:35,170 --> 00:20:38,300 is quite nice. 263 00:20:38,300 --> 00:20:40,510 So that's the interpretation. 264 00:20:40,510 --> 00:20:42,910 The known locality-- the spread out 265 00:20:42,910 --> 00:20:47,070 of the electron into a little ball of its Compton size 266 00:20:47,070 --> 00:20:51,330 is quite significant. 267 00:20:51,330 --> 00:20:53,290 The Compton wavelength of the electron 268 00:20:53,290 --> 00:20:57,010 is fundamental in quantum field theory. 269 00:20:57,010 --> 00:20:59,020 The Compton wavelength of an electron 270 00:20:59,020 --> 00:21:05,980 is the size of a photon whose energy is equal to the rest 271 00:21:05,980 --> 00:21:07,430 mass of the electron. 272 00:21:07,430 --> 00:21:11,050 So if you have a photon of this size equal 273 00:21:11,050 --> 00:21:15,010 of wavelength equal to Compton length of the electron, 274 00:21:15,010 --> 00:21:17,680 that photon packs enough energy to create 275 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,520 electron-positron pairs. 276 00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:24,790 That's why, in quantum field theory, you care about this. 277 00:21:24,790 --> 00:21:27,670 And the quantum field theory is really 278 00:21:27,670 --> 00:21:30,290 the way you do relativistic quantum mechanics. 279 00:21:30,290 --> 00:21:35,500 So it's not too surprising that, in relativistic analysis 280 00:21:35,500 --> 00:21:37,990 such as that of the Dirac equation, 281 00:21:37,990 --> 00:21:42,910 we find a role for the Compton wavelength of the electron 282 00:21:42,910 --> 00:21:46,364 and a correction associated with it.