Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2001/ib/paper-2/18f/a/solution

The orbital angular momentum operators are
On smooth wavefunctions, , while position operators commute with each other and momentum operators commute with each other. Applying the product rule for commutators gives
Use it on the four terms in : only and survive, with the latter entering positively from the two minus signs. Therefore
The cyclic versions similarly give and . Thus, for ,
Now define . For each ,
because the Levi-Civita symbol is antisymmetric in and the operator pair is symmetric. Linearity then gives . The PDF superscript here is the squared total angular momentum, not the component .

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