Wavefunctions of particles inside a gas are localized through interactions
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Peer-reviewed physics literature and discussions show that in a gas, the continuous spreading of particle wavefunctions is limited or relocalized through scattering and collisions with other particles.
# Is the wavefunction of particles inside a gas spread or localized?
- Tags: quantum-mechanics, statistical-mechanics, wavefunction, decoherence
- Score: 20
- Views: 1,385
- Answers: 7
- Asked by: user83548
- Asked on: Nov 13, 2015
- Last active: Aug 29, 2020
- License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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## Question
For an individual free particle that starts localized, the wave function packet spreads over time, so the particle becomes less localized. Suppose now that we have a gas of those particles inside a box, and we allow them to collide (using some potential): will the wave function of each particle still spread indefinitely, or do collisions act as a source of decoherence and the wave function relocalizes again? I have heard both arguments by different colleagues, even in textbooks. Has anybody made a computer simulation that shows what would be the best picture?
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## Accepted Answer — Score: 13
- By: Rococo (8,077 rep)
- Answered on: Jul 4, 2016
**Preliminaries: How do we define 'localized?'**
For a single particle, or for multiple non-entangled particles, it is easy to tell from the expressions for the wavefunctions whether they are localized or delocalized. For example, you mig
Reconciling Kinetic and Quantum Theory | Foundations of Physics | Springer Nature Link
# Reconciling Kinetic and Quantum Theory
- Open access
- Published: 02 January 2020
- Volume 50, pages 55–60 (2020)
- Cite this article
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## Abstract
We show that in a dilute gas the wave function’s spreading is limited by scattering off other particles. This shows that quantum mechanics can be consistent with the kinetic theory of gases.
### The Kinetic Theory of Gases
### Kinetic Theory of Gases
### The Last Collection (1924–1925): Formulation of The First Quantum Statistics
## 1 Introduction
In the kinetic theory of gases one has a picture of little balls bouncing around, a concept of mean free path and related ideas. In more sophisticated theories the balls may become gaussian wave packets and the mean free path not simply given by mean free path\(\equiv \ell =1/n\sigma \), with n the number density of particles and \(\sigma \) the scattering cross section [1]. By contrast in quantum mechanics you have a wave function involving (say) \(10^{23}\) coordinates [2], preferably plane waves (assuming the particles do not interact strongly).
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