Past exam of the quantum field theory course of the University of Oxford 2025 3 a Solution 2026-10-25
For three odd fermionic operators, the identityconverts the commutator with a quadratic Hamiltonian into the given canonical anticommutation relations. Writing a mode label as , this yieldsThe opposite-species number terms commute with each fermionic creation operator or fermionic annihilation operator, because two anticommutations give a positive sign. Restoring the continuous normalization, the Dirac delta distribution in the mode brackets cancels . ConsequentlySubstitute these into the mode expansion of a Dirac field. The result isSince and , this is exactlyThe Heisenberg equation of motion uses an ordinary commutator with the even Hamiltonian, despite the odd fermionic operators obeying anticommutators among themselves.
Past exam of the quantum information course of the University of Cambridge 2012 Paper 1 1 Solution 2026-10-20
Use the computational basis in the stated order and let the rightmost operation act first. The controlled phase gate is . From the rotation definition,The control-zero block remains the identity, and the control-one block becomes . ThusThis proves the relation for arbitrary superpositions, rather than only for computational-basis probabilities.
For the second relation write . Its central block is , with , . Because , and , direct multiplication givesMeanwhile . Multiplying these diagonal matrices and the overall factor givesThe supplied is indeed a square root of the SWAP gate: exchanges and while fixing the other basis states. It acts as one on the triplet subspace and as on the singlet subspace.
For an isotropic exchange interaction with Hamiltonian , define . Triplet and singlet energies differ by , soAn exchange pulse with therefore implements . Two such pulses, interspersed with the specified local rotations, implement the controlled phase gate; the initial and final target rotations then turn it into a CNOT gate. Their common overall phase has no effect on an isolated gate's outcome probabilities; a subsequently controlled version must keep track of conditional phases.
CNOT synthesis from two square-root-of-SWAP exchange pulses and local rotations, with time running left to right
. Details. The construction converts a physically available two-spin interaction into a standard entangling gate, which together with arbitrary one-qubit rotations supplies universal quantum computation. Practical operation needs calibrated exchange pulse area and timing, individually controllable rotations, and reproducible phase references. Charge noise can change ; magnetic-field gradients add unwanted single-spin evolution, and anisotropic exchange modifies the assumed Hamiltonian. Pulses must suppress leakage into unwanted orbital states while finishing before excessive decoherence. Readout, preparation, cross-talk and the extra operations in this decomposition all affect the achieved quantum gate fidelity. The algebraic identity alone does not establish a fault-tolerant quantum computation implementation.
The Hartree-Fock method approximates the ground state wavefunction by a single Slater determinant, minimizing the expectation value of the Hamiltonian over its occupied orbitals. It retains fermionic exchange symmetry exactly within that determinant but omits electron correlation beyond a single Slater determinant.
For , the leading objective is to avoid adjacent electrons of the same spin. The unpolarized Fermi sea, although optimal within the preceding restricted family, has interaction energy per site . Its cost grows linearly with , while states with no forbidden neighbouring pairs have zero interaction energy.
There are two independent spinless fermion t-V chains, one for each spin. On an even ring, avoiding all neighbouring pairs allows at most particles in each chain. Since the total is , both bounds must be saturated, and each chain must alternate occupied and empty sites. Their two independent choices give four limiting occupation patterns:The first two are Néel states with one electron per site; the last two are charge density waves alternating doubly occupied and empty sites. Opposite-spin double occupation costs nothing in this particular Hamiltonian. Each species has alternating occupation in all four patterns.
These are the exact zero-interaction ground states at , and the limiting ordered configurations as . At large finite , virtual hopping admixes configurations with forbidden pairs, producing an energy correction of order . A finite ring can have superpositions of the ordered configurations, with possible quantum tunnelling splittings; four exactly degenerate product ground states are not implied at finite hopping. The four ordered choices describe the strong-coupling thermodynamic limit, with spontaneous symmetry breaking understood.
For a normalized orbital , the symmetric Hartree product state and its equivalent Fock space form areThere are exactly interacting pairs, so the expectation value of the grand Hamiltonian is the functionalAt fixed the term is constant. Enforce wavefunction normalization separately by varying with respect to . The resulting stationary Gross–Pitaevskii equation for the normalized orbital isThe Lagrange multiplier enforces the norm; fixed- variation cannot identify it with the independently inserted chemical potential merely by differentiating the constant .
For the standard large- convention put , so and , and replace by . Varying the resulting grand energy functionalwith unrestricted givesEquivalently, at fixed this same is chosen as the normalization Lagrange multiplier. This is the chemical potential convention used below. The contact interaction coupling has dimensions of energy times area in two dimensions.
The orthogonal coordinate change preserves the kinetic energy and takes the particle exchange operator to . Thus the spatial wave function is even in for bosons and odd for fermions.
The total potential energy and Hamiltonian separate asAssume so the relative oscillator is confining. Its spectrum is , and its parity in the two-particle relative coordinate is .
The lowest boson state uses , whereas the lowest fermion state uses , . ThereforeFor an oscillator of frequency , . Since ,The factor three is the extra relative-coordinate excitation required by antisymmetry. The supplied oscillator wave functions correspond to kinetic energy ; the extra factor printed before that term in the hint is inconsistent with those functions and the stated energies. The calculation uses the conventional kinetic energy dictated by particle mass .
Write , and , for nonnegative integer . The angular Laplacian satisfies . Direct radial differentiation givesBecause , the contribution cancels the Coulomb potential in the Hamiltonian. ThereforeThe volume element contributes . The squared state factors into radial, polar and uniform azimuthal densities, so the angular normalization cancels in every radial expectation. With ,The supplied integration-by-parts recurrence gives . HenceIn particular . Put . Chebyshev's inequality gives
For the polar variable set . The polar density is proportional to , soAn exact expression for the requested tail, as well as its useful estimate, isThe inequality is Markov's inequality applied to . If a finite expression is desired, expand : the numerator is and the denominator is the same sum with .
By the union bound, with probability at least both and . The height above the equatorial plane is then at most . The cylindrical radius differs from by at most . Thus the distance from the circle of radius in the equatorial plane is with probability tending to one. This is relative concentration around a growing circle; it does not assert an absolutely shrinking thickness. The probability concentration of a circular Coulomb eigenstate is a precise version of the large-angular-momentum orbit picture.
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.
Inside the infinite well, the time-independent Schrödinger equation is with Dirichlet endpoints. Negative or zero energy gives no nonzero solution satisfying both endpoints. For , the sine solution requires . ThusThe normalization follows from . These functions form an orthonormal basis. Substitute the expansion into and take the inner product with each basis vector: orthonormality gives , equivalentlyFor a general infinite expansion this is interpreted in the usual Hamiltonian domain or its unitary evolution; the particular state below has only two terms.
Put . The identity gives , , all others zero. Their squared magnitudes sum to one. HenceThe evolved state is . Its position probability includes an interference term with frequency . Specifically,The three required integrals are , and , respectively. ThereforeThe energy expectation is constant while the spatial probability oscillates, because relative energy phases affect interference but not the energy probabilities.
For a nonzero trial vector use the Rayleigh quotient . Its first variation in any allowed direction isVanishing for all complex directions implies ; an eigenvector conversely makes it vanish. The ground energy is the infimum of this quotient for a lower-bounded Hamiltonian, so minimizing over a trial family provides an upper bound to it, exact when that family contains a ground eigenvector.
Set , and . All three are real: are self-adjoint and commute. Also . Expansion of the numerator and norm givesDifferentiate the quotient, retaining only nonzero trial vectors:Thus the stationarity equation is . If , the quotient is identically wherever defined. Otherwise are the two extrema, withIn this nonconstant case , so both denominators are positive. If , the plus value is the maximum and the minus value the minimum; the assignments reverse when . One can also see global extremality by resolving the trial vector into the orthogonal sectors: its energy is a weighted mean of their two fixed projected energies.
The null-vector exception matters. If , then , the covariance vanishes and one of is zero. That value has no Rayleigh quotient and is not an extra stationary physical state.
For particle exchange, change of integration variables shows that is unitary and , hence self-adjoint. Exchanging coordinates interchanges the two kinetic derivatives and leaves the symmetric potential unchanged, so . The vectors lie in its symmetric and antisymmetric sectors. Their normalized nonzero versions are respectively bosonic and fermionic spatial trial wavefunctions.
Because the energy of a general trial state is the weighted average of its sector energies, at least one nonzero symmetry projection has energy no greater than the original trial. Thus minimizing can be performed in a definite exchange-symmetry sector. This is a variational approximation within the trial subspace; it does not assert that projecting an arbitrary trial vector produces an exact eigenvector of . For particles with a prescribed statistics sector one minimizes within that physical sector.
For bound hydrogen atom states, the radial wave function is regular and finite at the origin, and decays at infinity so that . Equivalently the reduced radial function has and is square integrable on the half-line. A singular branch is not an admissible regular Coulomb eigenfunction; its derivative energy diverges and it introduces an origin singularity absent from the Hamiltonian domain.
Write , so . Multiplication by turns the radial equation intoSince and , substitution givesChoose to remove the constant coefficient and factor out the decaying exponential. For , the lowest power has coefficient , so . The behavior would give , violating regularity; choose .
Matching successive powers then yieldsA nonterminating tail eventually has one sign, and its coefficient ratio is asymptotic to . More precisely, for any , the ratio is eventually at least . Its same-sign tail consequently dominates a positive constant times the exponential series of rate , up to finitely many terms. The factor cannot then make decay. Thus square integrability forces termination.
If the last nonzero term is , termination requires . ThereforeFor , , is proportional to , andThe radial volume element is , so the mean radius is the ratio of the radius-weighted norm integral to the norm integral. With , the common angular and normalization factors cancel:In the ground state .
With and ,ThusFor , spin down is the lower energy eigenstate. The negative electron magnetic moment is already accounted for in the positive coefficient multiplying in the given Hamiltonian.
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.
For a nonzero trial vector use the Rayleigh quotient . Its first variation in any allowed direction isVanishing for all complex directions implies ; an eigenvector conversely makes it vanish. The ground energy is the infimum of this quotient for a lower-bounded Hamiltonian, so minimizing over a trial family provides an upper bound to it, exact when that family contains a ground eigenvector.
Set , and . All three are real: are self-adjoint and commute. Also . Expansion of the numerator and norm givesDifferentiate the quotient, retaining only nonzero trial vectors:Thus the stationarity equation is . If , the quotient is identically wherever defined. Otherwise are the two extrema, withIn this nonconstant case , so both denominators are positive. If , the plus value is the maximum and the minus value the minimum; the assignments reverse when . One can also see global extremality by resolving the trial vector into the orthogonal sectors: its energy is a weighted mean of their two fixed projected energies.
The null-vector exception matters. If , then , the covariance vanishes and one of is zero. That value has no Rayleigh quotient and is not an extra stationary physical state.
For particle exchange, change of integration variables shows that is unitary and , hence self-adjoint. Exchanging coordinates interchanges the two kinetic derivatives and leaves the symmetric potential unchanged, so . The vectors lie in its symmetric and antisymmetric sectors. Their normalized nonzero versions are respectively bosonic and fermionic spatial trial wavefunctions.
Because the energy of a general trial state is the weighted average of its sector energies, at least one nonzero symmetry projection has energy no greater than the original trial. Thus minimizing can be performed in a definite exchange-symmetry sector. This is a variational approximation within the trial subspace; it does not assert that projecting an arbitrary trial vector produces an exact eigenvector of . For particles with a prescribed statistics sector one minimizes within that physical sector.
The Time-dependent Schrödinger equation, with the Hamiltonian for a particle of mass in a real potential energy , isA stationary state is an energy eigenstate: its wavefunction evolves by a single global phase,Its probability density is independent of time. For a normalized wavefunction, the probability density and probability current areSubtracting the complex conjugate of the Time-dependent Schrödinger equation, multiplied by , from the original equation multiplied by cancels the real potential energy terms and gives the continuity equation . Thus measures signed probability flow in the positive direction.
Assume the given wavefunction is zero outside . Wavefunction normalization requiresAn arbitrary overall quantum phase is unobservable, so choose the positive real representative .
The linear ramp state in an infinite square well has a boundary subtlety: the limiting value at is , rather than zero. The function is still a normalized element of the well's Hilbert space , so position measurement and energy-projection probabilities are meaningful. It is not in the domain of the Dirichlet Hamiltonian, nor is it a finite-energy box state. Altering the value at the single endpoint does not cure its nonzero boundary trace; a physical finite-energy preparation must smooth the function to zero near the wall. The following probabilities refer to the supplied idealized state.
