Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-advanced-quantum-physics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/2/a/solution

A spherical tensor operator of rank transforms under rotation like an angular momentum . The Wigner-Eckart theorem writes its matrix elements as
The reduced matrix element contains the radial and other dynamical information; the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients determine the dependence on the projections. Ratios within a fixed pair of multiplets therefore follow without a radial integral. The angular selection rules include and .
For the position vector, choose the rank-one components
Let . The stretched Clebsch-Gordan coefficients and one lowering step give
For example, apply the total angular momentum ladder operator to the stretched state. The result has components with coefficients and , corresponding to lowering the initial angular momentum and the vector component, respectively.
Only the component of contributes to . The operator cannot connect the projections in , so that matrix element vanishes. With the convention above,
Thus the requested relative magnitudes and their squared values are
These ratios presume a common nonzero reduced matrix element. The position operator has odd parity, so an electric dipole transition requires opposite-parity multiplets; for one Electron the electric-dipole selection rule also gives . The displayed labels alone do not establish that condition. If the common reduced matrix element vanishes, all three matrix elements vanish and no nonzero ratio can be inferred.

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