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The path integral formulation is a description in quantum mechanics that generalizes the stationary action principle of classical mechanics.It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique classical trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of quantum-mechanically possible trajectories to compute a quantum amplitude.
The Feynman–Kac formula says that this expectation is equivalent to the integral of a solution to a diffusion equation. Specifically, under the conditions that , where w(x, 0) = δ(x) and. The Feynman–Kac formula can also be interpreted as a method for evaluating functional integrals of a certain form. If where the integral is taken over ...
In mathematics, a line integral is an integral where the function to be integrated is evaluated along a curve. [1] The terms path integral, curve integral, and curvilinear integral are also used; contour integral is used as well, although that is typically reserved for line integrals in the complex plane. The function to be integrated may be a ...
Path integration. Path integration sums the vectors of distance and direction traveled from a start point to estimate current position, and so the path back to the start. Path integration is the method thought to be used by animals for dead reckoning.
In the mathematical field of complex analysis, contour integration is a method of evaluating certain integrals along paths in the complex plane. [1][2][3] Contour integration is closely related to the calculus of residues, [4] a method of complex analysis. One use for contour integrals is the evaluation of integrals along the real line that are ...
Functional integration. Functional integration is a collection of results in mathematics and physics where the domain of an integral is no longer a region of space, but a space of functions. Functional integrals arise in probability, in the study of partial differential equations, and in the path integral approach to the quantum mechanics of ...
The gradient theorem implies that line integrals through gradient fields are path-independent. In physics this theorem is one of the ways of defining a conservative force. By placing φ as potential, ∇φ is a conservative field. Work done by conservative forces does not depend on the path followed by the object, but only the end points, as ...
In complex analysis, a branch of mathematics, the antiderivative, or primitive, of a complex -valued function g is a function whose complex derivative is g. More precisely, given an open set in the complex plane and a function the antiderivative of is a function that satisfies . As such, this concept is the complex-variable version of the ...