Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / ib / Paper 4 / 6B / a / Solution

The orbital angular momentum linear operator is the cross product of the position operator and the momentum operator:In position space, $\hat{\mathbf{p}}=-i\hslash \nabla$, so $\hat{\mathbf{L}}=-i\hslash \mathbf{r}\times \nabla$. The Levi-Civita symbol gives ${\hat{L}}_1={\hat{x}}_2{\hat{p}}_3-{\hat{x}}_3{\hat{p}}_2$ and its cyclic analogues.