Resolving the partition function’s paradox of the hydrogen atom

Our protagonist here is the electronic contribution to the canonical ensemble partition function of the hydrogen atom. It is well known that it poses an intriguing paradox, (Blinder, 1995). We attempt to solve it by appeal to a mathematical zeta function’s regularization technique. •We give a possib...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysica A Vol. 534; p. 122169
Main Authors Plastino, A., Rocca, M.C., Ferri, G.L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 15.11.2019
Subjects
Hydrogen atom paradox
Mean energy
Partition function
Specific heat
Specific heat
Mean energy
Partition function
Hydrogen atom paradox
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Summary:Our protagonist here is the electronic contribution to the canonical ensemble partition function of the hydrogen atom. It is well known that it poses an intriguing paradox, (Blinder, 1995). We attempt to solve it by appeal to a mathematical zeta function’s regularization technique. •We give a possible solution to the paradox of the partition function of the hydrogen atom.•We use zeta function regularization.•We evaluate the partition function and the mean energy.•We obtain the corresponding specific heat.
ISSN:0378-4371
1873-2119
DOI:10.1016/j.physa.2019.122169