Geometric Formulation of Unique Quantum Stress Fields

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  • 18 June 2000
Abstract
We present a new formulation for calculating the dependence of the energy of a quantum-mechanical system on the strain field, in order to identify unambiguously the stress field. The method is geometric in nature and is based on the relationship between the strain tensor field and the metric tensor field on a general Riemannian manifold. We prove that the resultant expression for the stress field is gauge invariant and therefore provides a unique, well-defined quantity. To illustrate this formalism, we present the quantum stress field for the hydrogen atom.

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