Core foundations, algorithms, and language design for symbolic computation in physics

dc.contributor.authorHarris, Jason F.en
dc.date.accessioned2011-12-14T22:53:58Z
dc.date.available2011-12-14T22:53:58Z
dc.date.issued1999en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis presents three contributions to the field of symbolic computation, followed by their application to symbolic physics computations. The first contribution is to interfacing systems. The Notation package, which is developed in this thesis, allows the entry and the creation of advanced notations in the Mathematica symbolic computation system. In particular, a complete and functioning notation for both Dirac's BraKet notation as well as a full tensorial notation, are given herein. The second part of the thesis introduces a prototype based rule inheritance language paradigm that is applicable to certain advanced pattern matching rewrite rule language models. In particular, an implementation is presented for Mathematica. After detailing this language extension, it is adopted throughout the rest of the thesis. Finally, the third major contribution is a highly efficient algorithm to canonicalize tensorial expressions. By an innovative technique this algorithm avoids the dummy index relabeling problem. Further algorithmic optimizations are then presented. The complete algorithm handles linear symmetries such as the Bianchi identities. It also fully accommodates partial derivatives as well as mixed index classes. These advances in language and notations are extensively demonstrated on problems in quantum mechanics, angular momentum, general relativity, and quasi-spin. It is shown that the developments in this thesis lead to an extremely flexible, extensible, and powerful working environment for the expression and ensuing calculation of symbolic physics computations.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10092/6073
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.26021/9165
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Canterbury. Physicsen
dc.relation.isreferencedbyNZCUen
dc.rightsCopyright Jason F. Harrisen
dc.rights.urihttps://canterbury.libguides.com/rights/thesesen
dc.titleCore foundations, algorithms, and language design for symbolic computation in physicsen
dc.typeTheses / Dissertations
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Canterburyen
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen
uc.bibnumber756246
uc.collegeFaculty of Scienceen
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