Expectation values of observables

Recall the basic formula for the expectation value of an observable \(A\):

\[\langle A \rangle = {1 \over Q(\beta)}{\rm Tr}(Ae^{-\beta H})\]

Two important cases pertaining to the evaluation of the trace in the coordinate basis for expectation values will be considered below:

Contributors and Attributions

• Mark Tuckerman (New York University)