Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/ib/paper-3/7b/solution

In the position representation, . The orbital angular momentum operator and its squared magnitude are
For example, with , the latter is . Operator products here act on smooth wavefunctions in a common invariant domain.
To calculate the angular momentum commutation relations, use and the vanishing position-position and momentum-momentum commutators. Expanding the products gives
Multiplication by then gives
Finally, the product commutator rule yields
The final cancellation pairs the antisymmetric Levi-Civita symbol with an expression symmetric in . Thus

New to topics? Read the docs here!