The Fermi–Dirac distribution is a statistical distribution of speeds among electrons that are responsible for thermal conduction in metals. It is a result of Fermi–Dirac statistics, a type of quantum statistics that applies to systems of many non-interacting, identical particles. The distribution applies to identical and indistinguishable particles with half-integer spin, called fermions. These particles must obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which means that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state. The distribution implies that each eigenstate of a system is occupied with a... Show more The Fermi–Dirac distribution is a statistical distribution of speeds among electrons that are responsible for thermal conduction in metals. It is a result of Fermi–Dirac statistics, a type of quantum statistics that applies to systems of many non-interacting, identical particles. The distribution applies to identical and indistinguishable particles with half-integer spin, called fermions. These particles must obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which means that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state. The distribution implies that each eigenstate of a system is occupied with a certain probability. The entropy is given by a sum over the probabilities of occupation of those states. The distribution is most commonly applied to electrons, a type of fermion with spin 1/2. For example, only two electrons can occupy each electron energy level. One electron can have spin up and the other can have spin down, so that they have different spin quantum numbers. Show less
The Fermi–Dirac distribution is a statistical distribution of speeds among electrons that are responsible for thermal conduction in metals. It is a result of Fermi–Dirac statistics, a type of quantum statistics that applies to systems of many non-interacting, identical particles.
The distribution applies to identical and indistinguishable particles with half-integer spin, called fermions. These particles must obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which means that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state. The distribution implies that each eigenstate of a system is occupied with a certain probability. The entropy is given by a sum over the probabilities of occupation of those states. The distribution is most commonly applied to electrons, a type of fermion with spin 1/2. For example, only two electrons can occupy each electron energy level. One electron can have spin up and the other can have spin down, so that they have different spin quantum numbers.
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