Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/iii/paper-302/2/a/solution

Define the ladder operators . The SU(2) Lie algebra relations imply
Thus has weight when nonzero. Starting from a maximum-weight vector , repeated lowering gives weights
The norm formula derived from the Casimir element,
shows that lowering stops precisely at . Therefore is a nonnegative integer and the irreducible representation has dimension .

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