Past exam of the quantum theory course of the University of Oxford / 2023 / 3 / a

The angular momentum commutation relations arewhere ${\epsilon }_{ijk}$ is the Levi-Civita symbol. The angular momentum eigenstates havewith angular momentum quantum number $j=0,\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2},\dots$ and magnetic quantum number $\mu =-j,-j+1,\dots ,j$. There are $2j+1$ such states in one irreducible spin representation, so the $J^2$ eigenspace has dimension $2j+1$ within that multiplet. The use of $\mu$ avoids confusing the magnetic quantum number with the particle mass in the earlier questions.

For completeness, the ladder operators $J_{\pm }=J_1\pm i{J}_2$ satisfy $[J_3,J_{\pm }]=\pm \hslash J_{\pm }$ andThe upper and lower ends are $\mu =\pm j$; integer steps between them require $2j$ to be a nonnegative integer. This explains both the spectrum and the multiplet dimension. Pure orbital angular momentum permits only integer $j$, whereas general spin allows half-integers. If a larger Hilbert space contains several copies of the same irreducible spin representation, the full $J^2$ eigenspace includes all those copies: its dimension is $(2j+1)$ times their multiplicity, and can be infinite. The paper's dimension question is understood per irreducible multiplet.

In the ordered orthonormal basis $(|\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}⟩,|\frac{1}{2},-\frac{1}{2}⟩)$, the spin one-half angular momentum operators are $J_i=(\hslash /2){\sigma }_i$, with Pauli matricesThe ladder operators areExplicit multiplication gives $J_{+}{J}_{-}={\hslash }^2\mathrm{diag}(1,0)$ and $J_{-}{J}_{+}={\hslash }^2\mathrm{diag}(0,1)$. Their commutator is therefore