Past exam of the advanced quantum physics course of the University of Cambridge / 2022 / Section B / 6 / b

The orthogonal projection onto the full spin-$\eta$ subspace isHere the identity acts on all oscillator states. The finite-time scattering operator $S(t)$ in the question is the interaction picture time-evolution operator, so $|{\psi }_{\sigma }^I(t)⟩=S(t)|\sigma ,\{n\}⟩$. Projecting its two orthogonal spin components yieldsExpand the right-hand side in the orthonormal basis $|\eta ,\{n^{\prime }\}⟩$. Taking its squared norm, and using the normalization of $|{\varphi }_{\eta }⟩$, givesThus one sums probabilities over unobserved final oscillator states, not their probability amplitudes. Unitarity of $S(t)$ makes the sum over both $\eta$ equal to one.