Paper 3, Section II, C

Quantum Mechanics | Part IB, 2012

State the condition for a linear operator O^\hat{O} to be Hermitian.

Given the position and momentum operators x^i\hat{x}_{i} and p^i=ixi\hat{p}_{i}=-i \hbar \frac{\partial}{\partial x_{i}}, define the angular momentum operators L^i\hat{L}_{i}. Establish the commutation relations

[L^i,L^j]=iϵijkL^k\left[\hat{L}_{i}, \hat{L}_{j}\right]=i \hbar \epsilon_{i j k} \hat{L}_{k}

and use these relations to show that L^3\hat{L}_{3} is Hermitian assuming L^1\hat{L}_{1} and L^2\hat{L}_{2} are.

Consider a wavefunction of the form

χ(x)=x3(x1+kx2)er\chi(\mathbf{x})=x_{3}\left(x_{1}+k x_{2}\right) e^{-r}

where r=xr=|\mathbf{x}| and kk is some constant. Show that χ(x)\chi(\mathbf{x}) is an eigenstate of the total angular momentum operator L^2\hat{\mathbf{L}}^{2} for all kk, and calculate the corresponding eigenvalue. For what values of kk is χ(x)\chi(\mathbf{x}) an eigenstate of L^3\hat{L}_{3} ? What are the corresponding eigenvalues?

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