Paper 3, Section I, B

Quantum Mechanics | Part IB, 2018

What is meant by the statement that an operator is Hermitian?

Consider a particle of mass mm in a real potential V(x)V(x) in one dimension. Show that the Hamiltonian of the system is Hermitian.

Starting from the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, show that

ddtx^=1mp^,ddtp^=V(x^)\frac{d}{d t}\langle\hat{x}\rangle=\frac{1}{m}\langle\hat{p}\rangle, \quad \frac{d}{d t}\langle\hat{p}\rangle=-\left\langle V^{\prime}(\hat{x})\right\rangle

where p^\hat{p} is the momentum operator and A^\langle\hat{A}\rangle denotes the expectation value of the operator A^\hat{A}.

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