Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2020 / Paper 1 / 3

Direct matrix multiplication givesFor example, the diagonal entries of ${\tau }_2^2$ are $(-i)i=i(-i)=1$, and its off-diagonal entries vanish. Associativity now reduces every positive integer power to its integer parity:These are the standard Pauli matrices, each a Hermitian matrix and an involution.

Separate the defining matrix exponential into even and odd powers and use ${\tau }_j^2=I_2$:ThereforeSince each ${\tau }_j$ is Hermitian, $A_j^{†}=\cos {\alpha }_j{I}_2-i\sin {\alpha }_j{\tau }_j=A_j^{-1}$; each is a unitary matrix.

For $A_1$, the determinant is ${\cos }^2{\alpha }_1-(i\sin {\alpha }_1{)}^2=1$. For $A_2$ it is ${\cos }^2{\alpha }_2+{\sin }^2{\alpha }_2=1$, and for $A_3$ it is $e^{i{\alpha }_3}{e}^{-i{\alpha }_3}=1$. Multiplicativity of the determinant givesTogether with unitarity, this places the matrices and their product in SU(2).

Writing the matrix explicitly givesIts determinant isSince $\det A_1^{†}=(\det A_1{)}^{\ast }=1$,The conjugation therefore preserves the squared Euclidean length encoded in $M$.

Set $c=\cos (2{\alpha }_1)$ and $s=\sin (2{\alpha }_1)$. Multiplying the matrices, or using the Pauli matrix multiplication law, givesCollecting the coefficients of $i{\tau }_j$ in $M^{\prime }$ yieldsThis is the right-handed active rotation by $2{\alpha }_1$ about the positive $x_1$ axis. Likewise, with $c_j=\cos (2{\alpha }_j)$ and $s_j=\sin (2{\alpha }_j)$,Thus the other axes also have rotation angle $2{\alpha }_j$. The factor of two is essential: replacing $A_j$ by $-A_j$ leaves the conjugation unchanged, illustrating the two-to-one relation between SU(2) and three-dimensional rotations.