The quantized field expansion in the complete orthonormal basis of orbitals isThe complex conjugation in the creation operator expansion is essential for complex orbitals. Indeed, creates the wavefunction . The resolution of the identity in an orthonormal basis givesrecovering the canonical commutation relation and the spatial Dirac delta function.
The two-mode approximation for a Bose gas retains the real localized orbitals:It is valid when the lowest doublet is well separated from higher energy levels, and the temperature and interaction-induced changes of the orbitals are small on that separation. More explicitly, if is the energy gap to discarded orbitals, sufficient low-energy conditions are , where . A deep double-well potential suppresses interwell interaction overlaps. Large alone does not justify the truncation: increasing at fixed coupling can violate the interaction condition.
Let and use the even and odd eigenfunctions to evaluate the projected one-particle Hamiltonian operator:ThusThe same quantum tunnelling matrix element is . Reflection symmetry makes . Neglecting mixed contact interaction integrals leavesThe last step is the normal-ordered boson pair count, following from the canonical commutation relation. Consequently the two-site Bose-Hubbard model has precisely the requested coefficientsandHere is the coefficient obtained by rewriting the fixed-particle number Hamiltonian operator, rather than an independently prescribed thermodynamic chemical potential. Adding a reservoir term would replace it by .
The negligible-overlap instruction applies to the mixed contact interaction integrals while the small quantum tunnelling matrix element is retained. Exactly disjoint smooth orbitals for a local would also give ; setting every overlap-related matrix element identically to zero would discard the physical splitting one is trying to describe.
Let and write in the Schrödinger picture, with observables constant unless they have an explicit time dependence. In the Heisenberg picture the state is andDifferentiate the two unitary factors to obtain the equation. Unitarity gives .
For the interaction picture choose a reference split , put , and define , . Then , , while evolves with (and its explicit time dependence). AgainThese are different unitary allocations of the same dynamics between states and observables, so measured expectations agree.
The canonical commutation relation now givesMultiplication of the last equation by and integration givesSince and , both initial expectations of vanish. ThereforeThe printed positive displacement endpoint has the wrong sign for the Hamiltonian's positive term. The two turning values are and ; their ordering depends on the sign of . The result oscillates about the displaced equilibrium , exactly as the force predicts.
Let and write in the Schrödinger picture, with observables constant unless they have an explicit time dependence. In the Heisenberg picture the state is andDifferentiate the two unitary factors to obtain the equation. Unitarity gives .
For the interaction picture choose a reference split , put , and define , . Then , , while evolves with (and its explicit time dependence). AgainThese are different unitary allocations of the same dynamics between states and observables, so measured expectations agree.
The canonical commutation relation now givesMultiplication of the last equation by and integration givesSince and , both initial expectations of vanish. ThereforeThe printed positive displacement endpoint has the wrong sign for the Hamiltonian's positive term. The two turning values are and ; their ordering depends on the sign of . The result oscillates about the displaced equilibrium , exactly as the force predicts.
Centre the position operator and momentum operator by their real expectation values:Scalar multiples of the identity operator commute with every linear operator, so the canonical commutation relation givesThe second moments of the centred linear operators are the variances, and . Applying the preceding inequality and taking nonnegative square roots proves the Heisenberg uncertainty relation:Subtracting the means is essential: the uncentred second moments alone do not equal the variances. The equality case of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation requires the centred vectors to be imaginary multiples, as in the preceding equality conditions.
The position operator and momentum operator are self-adjoint operators, so the adjoint operator isUse the canonical commutation relation with the order of factors preserved:Subtracting the first product from the second provesThese creation and annihilation operators are unscaled and carry the paper's phase convention; their commutator is not the unit-normalized oscillator commutator.
On a smooth wavefunction , the position operator and momentum operator giveThus the canonical commutation relation is . Since and are self-adjoint operators and are real, the adjoint operator of isExpanding the products in the stated order is essential:Subtracting gives . These identities initially hold on smooth rapidly decaying functions, which contain the quantum harmonic oscillator energy eigenstates used below.
The factorization also proves a lower bound: for a normalized energy eigenstate ,Therefore . The commutator product rule, applied to , givesSo a nonzero application of the creation operator raises the energy eigenvalue by , while the annihilation operator lowers it by the same amount.
Begin with any energy eigenstate, whose existence is assumed. Repeated lowering must terminate: otherwise it would eventually produce a nonzero energy eigenstate below , contradicting the lower bound. More explicitly, if with integer and , the first lowering steps are nonzero. If , one further step is also nonzero by its positive squared norm and has energy , an impossibility. Thus and the last state satisfies . This provesEvery level exists as well: , so repeated raising from never vanishes. The same factorization bounds the energy expectation of any normalized state in the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator form domain below by , proving that the terminated state really is a ground state.
To find its probability density, solve the first-order equationIts solutions are . With , the supplied Gaussian integral givesTaking fixes an irrelevant global phase. ConsequentlyThe ground-state energy is positive even though the potential minimum is zero: it is the oscillator's zero-point energy.
The position operators and momentum operators are self-adjoint operators. Using conjugate linearity of the adjoint operator, , givesWrite . Bilinearity and antisymmetry of the commutator, together with the canonical commutation relations, give . HenceThe terms involving two position operators or two momentum operators vanish by the canonical commutation relations. Finally, reversing products under the adjoint operator, , gives . ThereforeHere is the identity operator. These are the relations for two independent pairs of creation and annihilation operators. The operator algebra in this question is understood on a common invariant operator domain, such as finite linear combinations of the number states constructed in part (c).
Write and . The canonical commutation relations for the creation and annihilation operators giveFor example, . The expression for from part (b), with distinct modes reordered, then yieldsThus is an invariant subspace, and the matrix of in the ordered orthonormal basis isIts characteristic polynomial is , giving the eigenvalues and normalized eigenstatesIndeed, and by the assumed orthonormality. Both eigenstates remain in the eigenspace.
Since and are self-adjoint operators, the adjoint operator relation requires and . Thus and . The canonical commutation relation givesMatching the , and identity operator coefficients in yieldsConsequently all real solutions areThe conventional creation and annihilation operators use . The other choice multiplies both by minus one and satisfies all the given equations. This harmless freedom is the oscillator ladder-operator sign convention; the subsequent formulas use the positive choice in both coordinates.
Use the canonical commutation relationsWriting , , direct expansion of the commutator givesThe Fock vacuum is annihilated by both . Successive creation operators generateHence, in the order of part (a), the six energy eigenstates are proportional toIf the Fock vacuum has unit norm, dividing the general expression by gives normalized number states. Normalization is not required here, but using this convention makes the later change of basis unambiguous.
The orbital angular momentum generates rotations in the plane. The canonical commutation relations giveUse the commutator product rule . Since different coordinates commute,Thus, for arbitrary positive angular frequencies,At , this becomes . The rotational symmetry of the two-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator allows a basis of simultaneous energy eigenstates and orbital angular momentum eigenstates.
The canonical commutation relation and hamiltonian giveSubstitution in the Heisenberg equation of motion yields and . Differentiating once more gives the harmonic-oscillator equation for each operator. Its initial-value solution isDifferentiating these expressions at zero verifies both prescribed initial derivatives. They also preserve .
Set and . Independent bosonic canonical commutation relations give , while and . Substituting and yieldsThereforewhich matches the matrix Lie algebra. This boson-pair realization of SU(1,1) differs from the number-conserving Schwinger boson representation of .
Choose orthonormal, flux-normalized incoming and outgoing channels and include all channels of this lossless scattering problem. Conservation of probability requires for every input vector. With ,For a square channel matrix this also gives . A submatrix obtained by omitting loss channels need not be unitary, but that is not the stated two-channel model.
The given real Hadamard matrix is symmetric, unitary and its own inverse. HenceThis same transformation preserves the canonical commutation relations for bosons and anticommutation relations for fermions. To extract probabilities one must use normalized number states, including their factorial factors, even when the supplied input expression is unnormalized.
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2017 1 a Solution 2026-10-18
In second quantization, expand the annihilating quantized field in a complete orthonormal basis of one-particle states, . At equal times, the canonical commutation relation for bosons and the canonical anticommutation relations for fermions are, respectively,andHere is a Dirac delta distribution. Multiplying by the basis wave functions and integrating gives for bosons, or for fermions; the two-annihilator and two-creator brackets vanish in the corresponding convention.
The mode number operator and total particle number operator areThe bosonic occupation numbers are . For fermions, and the canonical anticommutation relations imply , so the fermionic occupation numbers are only and , as required by the Pauli exclusion principle.
Keeping only two modes later is a projection: the projected field bracket is , rather than the full Dirac delta distribution.
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2018 1 a Solution 2026-10-18
For independent bosonic modes, the canonical commutation relation isFor independent fermionic modes, the canonical anticommutation relations arewhere and . The creation operator is the adjoint of the annihilation operator. In either case the mode's number operator iswith or as appropriate. It measures the mode's occupation number. Its possible eigenvalues areFor fermions, implies , so the number operator is a projection. This expresses the exclusion of double occupation of one fermionic mode. The total particle number is .
Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge 2019 3 a Solution 2026-10-18
For bosonic creation operators and bosonic annihilation operators, the canonical commutation relations areFor fermionic annihilation operators and their adjoints, the canonical anticommutation relations areThe respective number operators are and . Their allowed eigenvalues are . In the fermionic case , so its eigenvalues must satisfy ; this is the single-mode Pauli exclusion principle.
Use the unitary discrete Fourier transform , where . Thenwith and . The factor accounts for the duplicated pair in the full momentum sum.
Make a bosonic Bogoliubov transformation . Its coefficients preserve the canonical commutation relation because . The coefficient of the pair term vanishes when . ThusThe dropped constant is in addition to the classical ground-state energy. Since , at every , so the bosonic Bogoliubov diagonalization is stable. The minimum occurs at and gives the energy gap . In the isotropic limit the pair coefficient vanishes and the familiar quadratic small- ferromagnetic dispersion relation is recovered.
Use the unitary discrete Fourier transformThe transformed operators obey . The hopping terms contribute to the number coefficient. In the pairing sum, the odd sine part cancels between and . ThuswhereThe factor one half in the full momentum sum avoids counting an anomalous pair twice. For , for every allowed momentum. SetReal even angles ensure consistency between opposite momenta, and preserves the canonical commutation relations. The anomalous coefficient becomes . Normal ordering then giveswithThe field-polarized planar ferromagnetic spin wave has energy gap . The momenta run over the whole Brillouin zone once, including the self-inverse momenta and, for even , ; these use single-mode squeezing rather than introducing an extra independent partner.
The zero-field case has a zero-mode obstruction to bosonic Bogoliubov diagonalization. Its nonzero-momentum modes have , but , so no finite squeezing angle exists for the uniform mode. With , its Hamiltonian is , not an identically zero oscillator. For example, its matrix element between the vacuum and the two-boson number state is , whereas would vanish. Consequently the requested oscillator diagonalization is literal for nonzero field; at zero field treat the collective orientation separately or introduce a field regulator before taking a limit.