Physics

Physics · electromagnetism

Problem

(a) The electromagnetic modes travel through the ends,

x=0

and

x=L

, of the resistor. Show that the wavevectors corresponding to periodic waves on the interval

[0, L]

are

k_{n}=\frac{2 \pi n}{L}

. Then, show that the number of states per angular frequency is

\frac{d n}{d \omega_{n}}=\frac{L}{2 \pi c^{\prime}}

. Given constants: 2. Johnson-Nyquist noise In this problem we study thermal noise in electrical circuits. The goal is to derive the JohnsonNyquist spectral (per-frequency,

f

) density of noise produced by a resistor,

R

\frac{d\left\langle V^{2}\right\rangle}{d f}=4 k T R \tag{2}

Here, \langle\rangle denotes an average over time, so

\left\langle V^{2}\right\rangle

is the mean-square value of the voltage fluctuations due to thermal noise.

f

is the angular frequency,

k

is Boltzmann's constant, and

T

is temperature. It says that every frequency range

[f, f+d f]

contributes a roughly equal amount of noise to the total noise in the resistor; this is called white noise. Electromagnetic modes in a resistor We first establish the properties of thermally excited electromagnetic modes

V_{n}(x)=V_{0} \cos \left(k_{n} x-\omega_{n} t\right) \tag{3}

in a resistor of length

L

. The speed of light

c^{\prime}=\omega_{n} / k_{n}

in the resistor is independent of

n

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