Hot-Electron Problem. I. A Unified Formulation

The fact that both the Boltzmann equation for the hot-electron problem and Schrödinger's equation in quantum mechanics are first order in $\frac{\partial }{\partial t}$ is exploited to develop a formal treatment of the Boltzmann equation that parallels some of the formalism of quantum mechanics. Within this formalism, new methods are proposed and simple derivations of old methods are given both for the time-dependent and steady-state problems. Simple formal treatments of time-independent and time-dependent perturbations from the steady state are also given.