Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-quantum-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/3/b/iii/solution

Recover from the given angular momentum raising operator and angular momentum lowering operator:
This is the generator of rotations about the first coordinate axis. A natural candidate is the angular function pointing along that axis, . Direct substitution gives
Also , so linearity and part (ii) give . Thus an answer is . Its squared norm on the sphere is
so the normalized quantum state is
The supplied starting state gives an alternative derivation with a changed quantization axis. Put and . The angular momentum commutation relations give and , so raises the projection from to zero. Direct differentiation gives
which is nonzero and proportional to the same . This also connects the construction directly to the given state.

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