Fermi's golden rule is a way to calculate the transition rate between two states of a system using perturbation theory, which means it's an approximation. The transition probability per unit of time is given by:
where ρ is the density of final states, δ is the Dirac delta function, and < f | V | i > is the matrix element (in bra-ket notation) of the potential, V, between the final and initial states.
Although named after Enrico Fermi, most of the work leading to the Golden Rule was done by Dirac.
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Last updated: 05-09-2005 12:34:51
