Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-quantum-field-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/1/b/solution
Past exam of the quantum field theory course of the University of Oxford 2018 1 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
The canonical momenta are , soDifferent species commute at equal times, so these products have no ordering ambiguity and is Hermitian. Write . Substituting the mode expansion of a free field and using the spatial Fourier transform identity givesSubtract the expression with species interchanged. The two-annihilator terms cancel after , as do the two-creator terms. Commuting different species in the remaining terms yieldsThere is no infinite vacuum contribution to the Noether charge to subtract: the contractions that would generate a species-diagonal constant are absent.
The bosonic canonical commutation relations giveDefine the creation operatorsTheir commutators with are . Since , the one-particle states haveThe fixed-momentum states are delta-function normalized; a square-integrable wave packet of either species is a normalizable state with the same Noether charge eigenvalue. In this basis , so it measures a difference of occupation numbers. The equal-time identity , independently checks the sign against a.
New to topics? Read the docs here!