For Cartesian creation and annihilation operators , defineTheir Hermitian adjoints define . The canonical commutation relations imply , with mixed commutators zero. Direct expansion givesEach circular creation adds one energy quantum and angular momentum or . At total occupation , the allowed angular momentum values are , each once in this energy eigenspace.
From Heisenberg arrays to Born-Jordan commutation Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
In 1925, Werner Heisenberg proposed replacing classical orbital quantities with arrays of transition amplitudes and frequencies. His paper's opening demanded relations between quantities observable in principle; section 1 built products by summing over an intermediate state and noted their dependence on order. The formulas above express that construction in modern linear operator notation.[ref]
On the quantum reinterpretation of kinematical and mechanical relationships by Werner Heisenberg. Heisenberg, 1925; introduction and section 1, equations (5), (8), (15), (20), (24)–(25); Doria translation
Pumping and a heated bath prepared Mercury vapor around a hot platinum wire, mesh and collector in the original Franck-Hertz experiment. A galvanometer read collector electric current while accelerating voltage varied at fixed retarding voltage. Retarding scans distinguished outgoing electron energies.[ref]
Über Zusammenstöße zwischen Elektronen und den Molekülen des Quecksilberdampfes und die Ionisierungsspannung desselben by James Franck and Gustav Ludwig Hertz. 1914, pp. 459–461, Figs. 1–2
The losses constrain excitation of chemical atoms; they do not determine every optical coupling. The Franck-Hertz experiment explains the original mistaken ionization interpretation.Such excitation and spectral line evidence motivated a mechanics of discrete energy levels and transitions. Replacing one representation by another was a theoretical construction; the Franck-Hertz experiment does not measure a matrix product or establish a unique representation of an observable.
Later in 1925, Max Born and Pascual Jordan developed the array calculus systematically. Their section 3 states , equivalently the modern canonical commutation relationThis relates position and momentum through an intrinsically noncommuting product.[ref]
Zur Quantenmechanik by Max Born and Pascual Jordan. Born and Jordan, Zur Quantenmechanik, 1925; section 3, equation (38), translation p. 14
For the quantum harmonic oscillator, the canonical commutation relation and creation and annihilation operators give , recovering both the spacing and zero-point energy algebraically. One must retain infinitely many number states for the exact relation: the finite cutoff below reveals the obstruction explicitly.
Gaussian creation and annihilation operators 2026-10-06
On polynomials in of standard Gaussian measure, Gaussian integration by parts makes and adjoints, with commutator . The Probabilists' Hermite polynomials are obtained by applying repeatedly to , and . These give a Gaussian-space realization of creation and annihilation operators.
Harmonic vibrational energy levels 2026-10-14
Quantizing the stretching coordinate gives a quantum harmonic oscillator with reduced mass :Here is the vibrational quantum number and the reduced Planck constant. Consecutive energy eigenvalues have gap ; the ground state has zero-point energy above the well minimum. The offset cancels from every transition energy.
Local harmonic approximation near a potential minimum and equally spaced vibrational energy eigenvalues
. Original dimensionless model with and . The blue parabola is ; levels are . The orange comparison is the stipulated Morse potential , with the same curvature at ; it is not a fit to hydrogen chloride. Arrows show adjacent vibrational gaps, with molecular rotation omitted. Details.A short proof uses creation and annihilation operators: with , write . The Quantum Hamiltonian becomes . Nonnegativity of gives the lowest level; repeated application of raises its energy by each time. This also gives andThe ground state therefore has a nonzero spread of bond lengths, even though its mean stretching displacement vanishes. A stationary energy eigenstate has a time-independent position probability density; the classical oscillation curve is not a trajectory of an atomic nucleus in that state.
The parabolic model formally extends to the whole real line, whereas an actual bond length satisfies . It is useful for low levels concentrated near , with typical stretching displacements much smaller than . It fails near breakup of the chemical bond and when neglected anharmonicity becomes substantial.
Lamb-Dicke regime Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
The Lamb-Dicke regime means the wave-induced phase change across the occupied motional wavepacket is small. For one normal mode, let be the ground state's position standard deviation, and write using creation and annihilation operators. Here is mass and the Planck constant divided by . The effective wave vector component is the single beam's component for a direct transition, or the difference of two beam components for a Raman transition. With dimensionless , the useful condition is over the populated number states, rather than merely .
Absorb the sign of into the pulse phase. Expanding the coupling factor givesThe constant term preserves ; the annihilation operator gives ; the creation operator gives . The different square roots explain why removing a motional quantum becomes impossible at , while adding one remains possible. Smallness of controls this spatial expansion; resolving the resulting transitions is a separate frequency requirement.
Oscillator ladder-operator sign convention Created 2026-10-25 Updated 2026-10-31
For real coefficients in , imposing , and givesIndeed the adjoint operator condition makes the two coefficients equal and the two coefficients opposite. The canonical commutation relation gives , and matching the coefficients of and fixes their magnitudes. Both signs change together. The conventional creation and annihilation operators choose ; the other sign is an equivalent phase convention for the number states.
Past exam of the chemistry A course of the University of Cambridge 2024 Paper 1 A2 e Solution 2026-10-20
Write . The creation and annihilation operators obeyConsequently,The resulting function is not zero: its squared norm isThus is the normalized first excited state, up to phase. More generally the creation operator raises the energy by one quantum : . The factor is required because applying it to a higher state does not preserve normalization.
Past exam of the gauge field theory course of the University of Cambridge 2015 Paper 1 2 Solution 2026-10-20
A relativistic theory must accommodate the energy-momentum relation , causal interactions and the possibility of particle creation. Promoting the squared relation to a wave equation gives the Klein-Gordon field equationA plane wave hasThe positive and negative branches both solve the local differential equation. Its being second order in time means that specifying only a wavefunction, as in the nonrelativistic Schrödinger equation, is not the complete initial datum.
For a complex scalar, the conserved Klein-Gordon inner product comes from the currentFor the plane wave, , which is negative on the negative-frequency branch. Thus this conserved density cannot be a positive single-particle probability density for arbitrary Klein-Gordon solutions. Merely replacing it by does not supply the missing conserved relativistic probability law. The indefinite Klein-Gordon charge density is an obstacle to that naive one-particle interpretation, not evidence that a consistent scalar field theory has negative probabilities.
The Dirac equation is first order,The gamma-matrix anticommutation relations imply , so its spectrum again contains . But its conserved Dirac current has density . The Dirac equation solves the density-sign difficulty while leaving both energy branches. Treating every negative-energy solution as an ordinary accessible one-electron state would leave the energy unbounded below and permit radiative descent without a stable ground state.
The historical Dirac sea filled the negative-energy electron states and interpreted holes as positive-energy antiparticles. It motivates the Positron but is not the general modern explanation: bosons do not obey an exclusion principle and cannot be stabilized by filling a sea. Quantum field theory instead promotes the fields to operators and interprets negative-frequency modes using antiparticle creation operators.
For a complex scalar field, schematically,Bosonic commutation relations give a normal-ordered Hamiltonian and conserved charge of the formBoth particle species have positive excitation energies. The sign-changing scalar current now represents charge, rather than particle probability; opposite charges are physically allowed. The ordinary positive Fock space norm gives nonnegative probabilities. A real scalar field is its own antiparticle and has no corresponding complex-field U(1) charge.
For the Dirac field, the analogous expansion contains electron annihilation operators and positron creation operators. Fermionic anticommutation relations turn the negative-frequency contribution into a positive antiparticle excitation energy after the vacuum constant is removed. The Pauli exclusion principle and relativistic locality are thereby incorporated in a field description, rather than a postulated infinite population of physical negative-energy electrons. The normal-ordering step removes an additive vacuum constant; it does not by itself settle the separate gravitational vacuum-energy problem.
Interactions can change particle number while conserving total energy, momentum and charge. Trying to localize a particle on its Compton wavelength scale requires momenta of order its rest mass, where accessible interactions can involve pair creation. A fixed-particle wavefunction is consequently not a general description of such processes. Creation and annihilation operators act between different particle-number sectors, and field interactions describe scattering and production within one framework.
Finally, relativistic causality concerns observables: spacelike separated local bosonic observables commute, while fermionic fields satisfy the appropriate anticommutation conditions. This microcausality prevents a controllable influence through spacelike separated local operations. Free relativistic one-particle theories remain useful, and low-energy fixed-number approximations can be excellent. What fails is the naive insistence that unrestricted relativistic interactions, positive probabilities, stability and arbitrary particle production all fit an unchanged one-particle Schrödinger picture.[ref]
Quantum Field Theory by David Tong. §2.5 complex scalar fields; §5.1–5.3 fermionic quantization and the hole interpretation
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 44 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use units and the Minkowski metric , so . The canonical momentum of the real scalar field is , and the Hamiltonian operator isCanonical quantization of a real scalar field promotes and to operator-valued distributions satisfying the equal-time canonical commutation relationProducts and operator commutators can first be interpreted after spatial smearing. An additive vacuum constant in does not affect the following equations. In the Heisenberg picture, . Applying the canonical commutation relation to the quadratic Hamiltonian operator, and integrating the gradient term by parts, givesThus the Klein-Gordon equation is an operator equation. The spatial Fourier transform reduces it to , with . Its two frequency branches, together with the Hermitian adjoint condition , give the mode expansion of a free fieldThe measure is Lorentz invariant; its normalization fixes that of the creation and annihilation operators rather than imposing any extra physical assumption.
For invariant-normalized scalar mode extraction, take the Klein-Gordon inner product of with the field. The positive-frequency contribution has coefficient and spatial integral . The negative-frequency contribution has coefficient and spatial integral , so it vanishes because . ConsequentlyTaking the Hermitian adjoint, with the order of the scalar factors immaterial, yieldsEquivalently and . At a common time their operator commutator therefore isThe same calculation gives : the surviving factor is an energy difference supported at opposite spatial momenta. These are the bosonic canonical commutation relations in relativistic normalization of a one-particle state.
Choose the Fock vacuum by and . Only the annihilator-creator product contributes to the Wightman function, givingUsing time ordering and the reverse product for , the Feynman propagator, with the convention in this calculation, isIn particular the denominator in the spatial measure is in both terms.
To verify the four-dimensional Fourier transform representation, let and integrate the energy variable first:The Feynman i-epsilon prescription puts the positive-energy pole at and the negative-energy pole at . For , the contour integral closes in the lower half-plane with clockwise orientation. The residue theorem multiplies the residue by , giving . For , it closes counterclockwise above: multiplying the residue by gives . Thus . After inserting the spatial exponential, reversing in the negative-time term gives exactly the time ordering expression above. HenceThis equality is understood as a distribution limit; the same prescription gives .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 44 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
All three fields have mass . In the interaction picture the quantum fields evolve with the free Hamiltonian operator, so their equations areThe interactions evolve the states instead. For the appropriate mode expansion of a free field isIndependent species have commuting creation and annihilation operators. The full set of canonical commutation relations isThese follow from the separate equal-time canonical commutation relations for the three real scalar fields. For comparison, in the Heisenberg picture the full Euler-Lagrange field equations contain interactions: , , and . These are distinct from the free equations used in the interaction picture.
There are no derivative couplings, so the interaction Hamiltonian is . The interaction picture evolution operator obeysIterating its integral equation gives the Dyson seriesThe ordered integration region is equivalent to the unrestricted region with time ordering and the factor . Taking the scattering limit , , with the usual adiabatic prescription for perturbation theory, therefore yields the S-matrixAll fields inside this expression are interaction picture fields.
Use relativistic normalization of a one-particle state and take , . Define the connected scattering amplitude by . The identity contribution describes no scattering; the term linear in cannot connect these four external particles. At quadratic order, the connected term in the Dyson series isBy Wick theorem, a connected Wick contraction must attach the two external legs to at one vertex, the two external legs to at the other, and contract the remaining two fields. The two assignments of species to cancel the Dyson factor . At either vertex, the assignments of its identical fields to the incoming and outgoing particle cancel the interaction factor . Equivalently, the coefficient is multiplied by , giving . Therefore, writing ,Insert the Feynman propagator . The two vertex integrals impose and . With the Mandelstam invariant , this givesThis is distinguishable scalar scattering by a shared mediator with mediator mass . In physical elastic kinematics , so the denominator has no pole for . There is only the displayed -channel tree-level Feynman diagram: an - or -channel would require an absent mixed vertex. Each vertex contributes and the exchanged contributes , agreeing with the direct Wick contraction calculation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 10 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the complex inner product convention linear in its first argument. Give the exterior algebra its induced inner product, with an orthonormal wedge basis. Exterior multiplication is . Its adjoint is contraction:Applying this formula to separates its first term from the remaining terms, giving . Hence the canonical anticommutation relations areFor irreducibility, choose an orthonormal basis . The occupancy projections are , and projects onto the vacuum . For an increasing index set , put . Then maps the wedge basis vector to and kills every other wedge basis vector. Thus these products are all matrix units and the generated star-algebra is . Any common invariant subspace for the creation and annihilation operators is therefore either zero or all of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 10 7 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the unitary normalization of the Fourier transform,The Schwartz space consists of smooth functions for which every Schwartz seminorm is finite. Such functions and all their derivatives are integrable. Differentiating under the integral and integrating by parts giveConsequentlyExpand the derivative by the product rule and insert the integrable weight ; the right side is bounded by finitely many Schwartz seminorms of . This proves continuity . The identical argument with the opposite sign proves continuity of .
For surjectivity and injectivity an inversion proof is needed. If , multiply by . Fubini's theorem and the elementary Gaussian integral giveThe Gaussian has total integral one and its mass outside any fixed ball tends to zero. The right side therefore tends to , by uniform continuity of . On the left, , so dominated convergence gives . This proves . Reversing the signs in the same calculation proves . ThusIts inverse is continuous by the seminorm estimate already proved. This establishes the requested bijection without assuming Fourier inversion as an unexplained theorem.
Inversion gives and the Parseval identity. Indeed, inserting the integral for into and using gives . Density of Schwartz functions in extends to a unitary operator on , the Plancherel theorem. Translation of becomes multiplication by a phase, modulation becomes frequency translation, andThese formulas explain why the Fourier transform diagonalizes constant-coefficient differential operators. By transpose it also defines a bijection of the tempered distributions: with the complex-linear distributional pairing, , since the Fourier kernel is symmetric in its variables.
The connection with creation and annihilation operators is especially transparent for the harmonic oscillator. On the common invariant dense domain , setIntegration by parts shows that these are formal Hilbert-space adjoints. They are closable unbounded operators; commutators below are computed on , avoiding undefined products on arbitrary vectors. The identity gives the canonical commutation relationsIt also givesThe normalized vacuum satisfies . Define the Hermite functionsMoving annihilation operators past creation operators with the commutation relations provesThese same relations show that the Hermite functions are orthonormal: unequal occupations are orthogonal eigenvectors of one of the commuting symmetric number operators , and the ladder relations recursively give norm one.
For completeness, let be orthogonal to every . The Hermite polynomials have nonzero leading monomials and triangular lower-degree terms, so these orthogonality relations say that all polynomial moments of vanish. Its Fourier integral extends to an entire function of :The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, with the Gaussian absorbing every exponential linear weight and every polynomial, justifies differentiation uniformly on compact sets of . Every Taylor coefficient at zero is a vanishing moment, so the entire function is zero. Fourier uniqueness on follows here without circularity: if an function has zero Fourier transform, convolving it with gives zero by the Gaussian integral and Fubini, and the approximate-identity limit in gives the original function zero. Thus and . The Hermite functions form an orthonormal basis of .
Finally, the elementary Gaussian integral gives . The derivative and multiplication identities above implywhere the operators on the right act on the frequency variable. HenceThus creation and annihilation organize both the oscillator's spectral decomposition and the four possible Fourier eigenvalues. On Schwartz functions the oscillator powers control weighted derivatives, and Hermite coefficients decay faster than every power of ; conversely this rapid coefficient decay implies all Schwartz seminorms are finite. The Fourier phases preserve this decay, providing another explanation of the Fourier automorphism of Schwartz space.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 10 8 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The loop group here is , with pointwise multiplication. Although it is abelian, its nontrivial positive-energy quantum representations are projective: implementers can commute only up to a phase. A positive energy representation of the loop group of U(1) has rotations whose self-adjoint generator is bounded below and which implement in the projective unitary group. The fermionic construction gives both that phase and an explicit bosonic description.
Choose the one-particle Hilbert space with modes , , and projection onto . Use the polarized fermionic Fock spacewhere the exterior powers are Hilbert-completed and the tensor product is graded. Its vacuum fills all modes and leaves empty; excitations are particles in the empty modes and holes in the filled modes. The fermionic annihilation operators and fermionic creation operators satisfy the canonical anticommutation relationsFinite particle-hole configurations form an orthonormal basis. As in the finite-dimensional exterior algebra construction, their creation and annihilation operators act irreducibly: an operator in the commutant sends the vacuum to a scalar vacuum, since the joint kernel of its vacuum annihilators is one-dimensional, and then acts by that scalar on the dense configuration basis.
Segal's quantization criterion for fermions says that a unitary one-particle operator has a unitary implementer on this Fock space, satisfying , exactly whenEquivalently is Hilbert-Schmidt. Implementers are unique up to phase, hence form a projective unitary representation of the restricted unitary group. This is the fermionic, polarized criterion; it is not a condition that the entire operator be Hilbert-Schmidt. The criterion and the corresponding continuity topology are stated in Theorem III.2.1.1 of the fermionic construction of loop-group representations. For the compact principal-angle part of a pair of polarizations, the threshold has a concrete interpretation. Its two-dimensional blocks are rotations through angles ; finitely many unmatched modes can be handled separately. Each angle rotates the vacuum into times its original component plus times a particle-hole pair. After discarding finitely many exceptional blocks, the successive tensor products are Cauchy precisely when converges to a nonzero value, equivalently . In this block model the sum is exactly half the squared Hilbert-Schmidt norm of the projection difference; finitely many unmatched modes account for a change of charge. Infinitely many unmatched modes already violate the criterion. This explains why infinitely many arbitrarily small mixings can fail to be implementable.
For , multiplication is a unitary one-particle operator. Its matrix entry from to is . ThereforeFor a fixed difference , exactly pairs cross the polarization boundary. Smoothness makes the sum finite, so Segal's quantization criterion for fermions constructs a continuous projective unitary representation of every smooth loop. Smooth convergence gives operator-norm convergence of and Hilbert-Schmidt convergence of its commutator, which is sufficient for the strong projective continuity of the implementers.
Normal ordering fixes the charge and rotation energy. On the dense finite-configuration domain putThe sums are finite on each configuration. A particle at adds charge one and energy ; a hole at adds charge minus one and energy . Consequently is a nonnegative self-adjoint diagonal operator with integer spectrum and finite-dimensional eigenspaces. The unitaries are strongly continuous, have period , and implement . Conjugating multiplication by this one-particle rotation gives , so their Fock implementers rotate the loop representation projectively. This is an actual positive-energy circle action.
The scalar anomaly is visible in the Heisenberg current algebra of a fermion on the circle. Define on finite-energy vectorsFor fixed the sum has only finitely many nonzero actions on any configuration. Direct use of the canonical anticommutation relations givesOn summing, the two noncentral sums cancel. If the central sum is : for the terms are precisely . ThusIn particular for . The coefficient one in the central term is the level of this basic representation.
Let be smooth and real. The normal-ordered infinitesimal implementer of multiplication by isThe sign of the current index matters: multiplication by raises the one-particle mode by , so it corresponds to . It follows either directly from the bilinear commutator or from the fermionic currents on the circle that . For trigonometric these are oscillator fields on the finite-energy domain; their self-adjoint closures exponentiate to the implementers of . For general smooth , their extensions are obtained by the oscillator-field construction below: guarantees the square-summable field coefficients, and Fourier truncation converges in the corresponding Weyl relations implementers. Thus no unjustified infinite operator product is required.
SetIt is real and antisymmetric for real . The Heisenberg current algebra of a fermion on the circle relations give . The Weyl relations, or the finite-mode Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff computation followed by the square-summable limit, yieldThis is an explicit two-cocycle on the identity component of the loop group. A different phase choice changes it by a group coboundary, but its antisymmetric commutator remains , and hence cannot be removed.
The winding components also matter. Every smooth loop is with , real periodic , and mean determined modulo . Let implement multiplication by . It moves the filled boundary one place upwards, so it raises charge by one; phases of charge ground states can be chosen so that . Conjugating the fermionic currents on the circle givesChoose . Since , one obtains the full loop group two-cocycle for U(1)The exponent is bilinear in the additive winding-logarithm coordinates, so expansion immediately gives . Replacing by changes by , whose exponential is identity since charges are integers; the scalar cocycle also stays unchanged since . Thus the expression is well-defined on loops, not just on chosen logarithms. It records both the derivative anomaly and the commutator of winding with constant loops.
For the fermion-boson correspondence on the circle, decompose into charge eigenspaces. The charge- ground state fills all integer modes . Its energy isFor , sum the energies of the added modes ; for , sum the hole energies of the removed modes . Every other charge- configuration is obtained by moving finitely many occupied levels upwards, so this is the lowest energy. Since preserves charge and lowers energy by , for .
Define bosonic annihilation operators and , . They obey . Their occupation vectorsare orthonormal by commuting positive fermionic currents on the circle through negative fermionic currents on the circle. Their energies are . It remains to prove that they span, rather than assume the boson correspondence. Count configurations by formal charge and energy . Empty modes can contain one extra particle, while filled modes , , can contain one hole. Therefore the fermionic character isThe charge form of the Jacobi triple product proved in Question 4 identifies this withThe reciprocal product counts bosonic occupations, or partitions of an integer. For fixed charge and energy, the finite-dimensional fermion space has exactly as many basis configurations as the independent fermionic current on the circle monomials already constructed. Hence those monomials exhaust every such space, proving their dense completeness. This establishes a unitary identification of every charge sector with a bosonic Fock space, and on that identificationThe usual half-integer fermion convention instead gives ground energy and requires the corresponding adjustment of rotations. Here integer modes were deliberately chosen to obtain a genuine circle action with integral nonnegative energies. The two ground states of energy zero, at charges zero and one, are therefore consistent, not a negative-energy defect.
This is also a constructive bosonic realization of the loop representation: the mean of acts by , nonzero modes of act as the square-summable oscillator field , and winding shifts the charge sectors. Taking tensor copies adds the fermionic current on the circle central terms and gives level . Positivity constrains their sign, since in a vacuum sector for . The level-one construction, its explicit loop cocycle, and its complete bosonic occupation basis show how an abelian classical loop group acquires noncommuting quantum currents while retaining positive rotation energy.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ii Paper 1 32D b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The spatial translation operator is . From and the preceding central-commutator result,Thus , consistent with . Since , the translated wavefunction is .
For the quantum harmonic oscillator, the creation and annihilation operators give . Put . The central commutator of and is , soAs and ,Taking position wavefunctions provesThe coefficient squares sum to , checking normalization of this coherent state.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 48 4 b Solution 2026-10-07
Promote the canonical field and momentum to operators satisfying the canonical commutation relation, . A real field has Fourier reality condition . Its oscillator expansion isThe creation and annihilation operators add or remove excitations in the selected mode basis, withCanonical normalization requires the Wronskian .
For the Bunch-Davies vacuum, choose the positive-frequency short-wavelength behavior as . For the proposed solution, direct differentiation givesSubstitution cancels every term in . Its Wronskian is , and its large- limit is the required flat-spacetime positive-frequency mode. ThusA term with the conjugate frequency is another allowed classical solution, but would describe a different quantum state, through a Bogoliubov transformation. Its coefficient is set to zero by the early-time vacuum condition, not by absence of a second solution to the differential equation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 305 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write for , so . Under the antiunitary operator , the coefficients and exponentials in the mode expansion of a Dirac field are conjugated as well as the creation and annihilation operators being transformed. ThusRelabel and . The stated Dirac spinor identities implyAlso . Substitution reconstructs the original Dirac field at the reflected time:The minus sign comes from reversing the spin label, not from anticommuting field operators. This is the relation between the time-reversal matrix and the charge-conjugation matrix in the supplied spin phases and intrinsic phase convention. Rephasing the charge-conjugation matrix or the intrinsic time-reversal phase can change its displayed form. It proves time reversal of a Dirac field without identifying an antiunitary operator with its finite-dimensional spinor matrix.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 310 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the Fourier normalization of the PDF. The creation and annihilation operators obeyThere is no in this commutator because the expansion uses . The Bunch-Davies vacuum satisfies . Write for the coefficient of the annihilation operator. Only the contraction contributes, soThe given mode hasSince , the equal-time two-point function of a de Sitter scalar therefore has dimensional power spectrumComparing with the dimensionless power convention in the hint givesEquivalently, angular integration expresses the correlation as , where .
On superhorizon scales, is , andThis scale-invariant inflationary power spectrum gives equal variance per logarithmic wavenumber interval. It is exactly scale invariant in the massless constant- approximation here; slow evolution of and small field mass produce a small spectral tilt. Such quantum primordial perturbations supply the initial fluctuations that subsequently seed cosmological structure after conversion to curvature and density perturbations. The curvature conversion itself requires the metric perturbations excluded from this calculation.
The continuum correlation is understood with the usual infrared regulator, such as finite volume or finite inflationary duration. The strictly massless infinite-volume model has a logarithmic infrared divergence. Coincident products also require ultraviolet regularization or smearing; the finite mode spectrum is unaffected by these qualifications.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 311 4 iii a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The Klein-Gordon inner product satisfies , so . Orthogonality of positive and negative modes in the field expansion therefore gives and .
Extracting the primed coefficient in the same way, and using antilinearity in the first entry,Consequently the Bogoliubov transformation of the creation and annihilation operators isThe minus sign comes from the negative norm of the conjugate modes, and the complex conjugates come from the first argument of the Hermitian pairing.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 311 4 iii b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the canonical commutation relation for the creation and annihilation operators and the transformation derived above. Directly,Requiring these to equal and zero, respectively, and conjugating the equations yields the canonical identities for a bosonic Bogoliubov transformation:The commutator of the primed creation operators then vanishes by taking adjoints. These are exactly the corresponding positive-mode norm and positive-negative orthogonality conditions for the Bogoliubov transformation. They are sufficient for these algebraic commutators whenever the sums are well defined. Infinitely many modes introduce further questions of convergence and whether the two choices admit a common bosonic Fock space representation; the matrix identities alone do not settle unitary implementability.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 1 33D Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
From the creation and annihilation operators commutator,Therefore is either zero or an energy eigenstate with energy . Since each energy level of the one-dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator is nondegenerate, . Its norm determines the coefficient:Choosing the conventional phases of the number states gives
Solving the given relation for the position operator givesPut . Repeated use of the ladder relations givesHenceIn first-order nondegenerate perturbation theory, the component is omitted from the state correction, while and . It follows thatwhich is the first-order ground state of the quartic oscillator.

