Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 42 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The canonical anticommutation relations realize the internal states as a fermionic Fock space . Choosing a Clifford vacuum annihilated by all , the states are functions multiplying , , with , or . Thus the four fermion-number sectors in supersymmetric quantum mechanics arewith internal dimensions . The fermion number operator has value on . The sectors have even fermion parity, and have odd fermion parity.
Write , so that the supercharge is . The commutator is zero because the two mixed partial derivatives of agree. The canonical anticommutation relations then imply andThe Hamiltonian operator preserves each sector, while raises and lowers its degree by one. For a state in its operator domain, , so the spectrum is nonnegative. If with , then is a state of the same energy and opposite fermion parity, and . This is an odd involution pairing bosonic and fermionic states and proves equal even and odd multiplicities at every positive eigenvalue.
There is also a more precise adjacent-sector pairing. On the positive-energy eigenspace,The two summands are orthogonal since . A state in the image of obeys , , so maps it to a normalized partner in the next sector, with inverse . Thus positive-energy doublets lie in , , or . In particular, every positive-energy state of has a partner in , and every one of has a partner in ; the remaining middle-sector states pair with each other. There is no requirement that all four individual sector spectra coincide. Zero-energy states satisfy and can be unpaired. No confinement assumption was given: a continuous spectrum is possible, with the same even/odd pairing on its positive spectral subspaces.
For real , the adjoint operator is . In , every vanishes; in the one-dimensional internal space of , it equals . The two scalar Hamiltonian operators are consequentlyThese are the extreme sectors of the gradient superpotential Hamiltonian in supersymmetric quantum mechanics.
For radial and a normalized state with , and . The radial superpartner in three-dimensional supersymmetric quantum mechanics therefore has the simple formIt belongs to ; follows from , and its wavefunction normalization follows from . Also . At the origin the formula is interpreted by regular extension; its degree-one components carry the radial unit vector rather than being three independent radial scalars.
For a zero mode in the fermion-vacuum sector, the factorization of gives . Hence , or . The requested wavefunction isA nonzero normalizable wavefunction exists only if this integral is finite. The positive sign in the exponential is fixed by the given convention .
Zero mode in the fermion-vacuum sector 2026-10-14
For the gradient superpotential Hamiltonian in supersymmetric quantum mechanics, . A zero-energy normalizable wavefunction therefore satisfies for every , because its energy is . Equivalently , so on a connected configuration space . It exists in the Hilbert space precisely when is square-integrable. In three dimensions with radial , this requires . The sign depends on the convention ; the filled sector instead has the possible zero mode .