New coherent states and a new proof of the Scott correction

We introduce new coherent states and use them to prove semi-classical estimates for Schr\"odinger operators with regular potentials. This can be further applied to the Thomas-Fermi potential yielding a new proof of the Scott correction for molecules. This is the short version of a paper by the authors archived at math-ph/0208044.Comment: A misprint in definition of new coherent states corrected. To appear in Proceedings of the UAB 2002 Int'l Conference on Differential Equations and Mathematics Physic

Droplet Excitations for the Spin-1/2 XXZ Chain with Kink Boundary Conditions

We give a precise definition for excitations consisting of a droplet of size n in the XXZ chain with various choices of boundary conditions, including kink boundary conditions and prove that, for each n, the droplet energies converge to a boundary condition independent value in the thermodynamic limit. We rigorously compute an explicit formula for this limiting value using the Bethe ansatz.Comment: 36 pages, figures included as eps file

Counterexamples to Ferromagnetic Ordering of Energy Levels

The Heisenberg ferromagnet has symmetry group ${\rm SU}(2)$. The property known as ferromagnetic ordering of energy levels (FOEL) states that the minimum energy eigenvalue among eigenvectors with total spin $s$ is monotone decreasing as a function of $s$. While this property holds for certain graphs such as open chains, in this note we demonstrate some counterexamples. We consider the spin 1/2 model on rings of length $2n$ for $n=2,3,...,8$, and show that the minimum energy among all spin singlets is less than or equal to the minimum energy among all spin triplets, which violates FOEL. This also shows some counterexamples to the "Aldous ordering" for the symmetric exclusion process. We also review some of the literature related to these examples.Comment: We corrected an earlier misinterpretation we made of a famous result of Sutherland, which an anonymous referee corrected us on. 29 page