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About the Lagrange equation involving Coulomb interaction

Physics Asked on July 30, 2021

In the book by Prof Nagaosa, the Lagrange density was given by Eq. (1)
enter image description here (1)

Then, according to the Euler-Lagrange equation (Eq.(2)), we can do the derivatives of Lagrange density (e.g., Eq. (1)) with respect to enter image description here.

enter image description here (2)

By doing so, the Book by Prof Nagaosa indicates the following result:
enter image description here (3)

Why the factor $1/2$ in front of the integral (over r‘) disappear?

One Answer

This can be understood from the definition of functional variation, together with v(r-r')==v(r'-r) of Coulomb potential.

First of all, the functional derivative can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_derivative where you can find this: variation of F w.r.t. function rho Clearly, this gives the derivative of the Lagrange equation:

Lagrange

Next, let me define functional J as a function of function L: functional

If we follow the definition of the functional derivative by taking variation of Psi

we should have derivative (v(|r-r'|) is used; the derivative is exactly a mimic of fig.1 if you read the wiki carefully)

One interesting fact is that the 1/2 comes from the double-counting, and gets omitted by switching of r and r'.

Correct answer by Paul Chern on July 30, 2021

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