Past exam of the theoretical physics II course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / Paper 1 / 2 / a / Solution

The quantum propagator is the position-space kernel of the time-evolution operator: $\Psi (x,t)=\int K(x,t|x^{\prime },t^{\prime })\Psi (x^{\prime },t^{\prime })d{x}^{\prime }$. For a time-independent Quantum Hamiltonian, $U=e^{-iH(t-t^{\prime })/\hslash }$. Inserting a complete orthonormal energy eigenbasis givesA continuous spectrum requires the corresponding integral. At equal times, completeness makes this kernel a Dirac delta function.