Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 32B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The spin raising operator and spin lowering operator areThe angular momentum commutation relations implyso is proportional to . Sinceits squared norm isChoosing the conventional positive phase gives
Using the spin ladder operators,and thereforeIn the ordered product basis of the tensor product of quantum systemsthe matrix representation isThe two parallel-spin states are already eigenvectors. Diagonalizing the central block gives the four energy eigenvaluesThis is the spectrum of the Two-spin Heisenberg Hamiltonian in an opposing longitudinal field.
The asserted ground-state ordering requires the antiferromagnetic case . As ,The corresponding state at is the unique spin-one-half singlet statewhereas the three states at the first excited energy form the spin-one-half triplet state.
Indeed, for the total angular momentum operatorone has at The Hamiltonian then has rotational symmetry, so energy depends only on the total-spin sector. The singlet has total spin and multiplicity one; the triplet has and multiplicity . This rotational symmetry explains why the triplet energy eigenspace has dimension three.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 325 1 Solution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
Let a projective measurement have mutually orthogonal projections satisfying . On a density operator , the Born rule and the Lüders rule giveconditional on outcome . On the first part of a bipartite quantum system, replace by .
The subsystems are isolated when there is no interaction term coupling them. Their Hamiltonian operator has the formso their subsequent unitary time evolution factorizes as .
The reduced density matrix of subsystem 1 iswhere the partial trace is characterized byfor every local observable . Thus contains exactly the statistics accessible by measurements on subsystem 1.
Suppose a projective measurement is performed on subsystem 2 and its outcome is not communicated. The resulting nonselective state isFor every , the cyclic property of the trace and giveHence . No local projective measurement on subsystem 1 can reveal whether the remote unreported measurement occurred. This is quantum no-signalling, which prevents a choice made at a spacelike separation from transmitting information faster than light and makes the measurement formalism compatible with relativistic causality.
The proposed nondisturbing device would violate no information without disturbance. In an ordinary quantum instrument, let be the Kraus operators associated with classical output . If every pure state remains unchanged even conditional on the displayed outcome, every nonzero must be parallel to . A linear operator for which every vector is an eigenvector is a scalar multiple of the identity, so . Its output probabilityis independent of the state. It cannot equal for arbitrary projectors. Equivalently, repeated nondisturbing samples would permit quantum state tomography of one specimen and then quantum cloning, contradicting ordinary quantum theory.
Such devices would not necessarily enable superluminal signalling. One consistent operational extension could make every sequence of outputs depend only on the local reduced density matrix and local settings. Since an unreported remote measurement leaves that matrix unchanged, all local device statistics would remain unchanged too. Other extensions could add nonlocal outcome-dependent rules and permit signalling, but that behavior is additional to the device specification rather than forced by it.