Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2010 / ii / Paper 2 / 33C (Principles of Quantum Mechanics)

The rotation unitary operator is $U(\mathbf{n},\theta )=\exp (-i\theta \mathbf{n}\cdot \mathbf{J}/\hslash )$. A state with zero orbital angular momentum has a rotationally invariant orbital factor; a spinless $j=0$ state is wholly unchanged. Zero orbital angular momentum alone does not rule out a nontrivial rotation of intrinsic spin angular momentum.

For spin one-half, $\mathbf{J}=\hslash \mathbf{\sigma }/2$. Direct multiplication of the Pauli matrices gives ${\sigma }_i{\sigma }_j={\delta }_{ij}I+i{ϵ}_{ijk}{\sigma }_k$. The antisymmetric part vanishes when contracted with $a_i{a}_j$, henceFor $\mathbf{a}\ne 0$, the operator has trace zero, so its eigenvalues are $\pm \hslash |\mathbf{a}|/2$; for $\mathbf{a}=0$ both are zero. With unit $\mathbf{n}$, the even and odd powers in the exponential give

Take ${\mathbf{n}}^{\prime }=(\sin \theta ,0,\cos \theta )$. The rotated state $|m^{\prime }{⟩}_{\theta }=U(\mathbf{y},\theta )|m^{\prime }⟩$ satisfies $({\mathbf{n}}^{\prime }\cdot \mathbf{J})|m^{\prime }{⟩}_{\theta }=m^{\prime }\hslash |m^{\prime }{⟩}_{\theta }$, because $U{J}_3{U}^{†}={\mathbf{n}}^{\prime }\cdot \mathbf{J}$. By the Born rule, the probability of this outcome in the initial state $|m⟩$ is $|{}_{\theta }⟨m^{\prime }|m⟩{|}^2=|⟨m|U(\mathbf{y},\theta )|m^{\prime }⟩{|}^2$. In the $J_3$ eigenbasis,The transition from $m=1/2$ to $m^{\prime }=-1/2$ thus has probability ${\sin }^2(\theta /2)=1-{\cos }^2(\theta /2)$. $\boxed{A=1,B=-1}$.