Phys622 Lecture 2 09/04/13

axioms of quantum mechanics

(1) State Vectors (Kets)

(2) Inner product between two states:
such that
Inner product is linear

Probability has a convenient interpretation if:

so that



(3) Allows denition of dual vector (bra)



(4) Associativity axiom:




allows natural denition of projectors





This is exactly what a Stern-Gerlach apparatus does!






Meet Stern Gerlach again

Multilevel Stern Gerlach







Empty

Orthonormal complete sets of states:



Pure states are reproducible
Pure states are mutually exclusive


Equivalent statements (check) :



Change of bases between two SG expts :


Check that orthonormality ensures:





Operators :
Stern Gerlach ( Projectors )


Field induced rotations
(unitary matrices)


Sums and products of ops













Unitary transformation


Follows from ux
Conservation below



Sums and products of operators:

Beam splitters













Products:


Observables- measurement (special case)













Check that



Crash course in complex linear algebra:


States bra and ket vectors



The orthonormal set of states is called a basis if it is complete (i.e. every vector can be written like ).

Bases provide correspondence between states and n-tuples (representation):


Transition Probabilities Inner product







"Operators" Matrices




Hermitean conjugate:



Equivalently:

Projectors are hermitean:

Observables are hermitean:

Change of bases correspond to unitary matrices:




Operator approach


Vector transformation:


Matrix transformation:


Spectral decomposition (eigenvalues and eigenvectors):

Given operator A an eigenpair is dened as:



Matrix form:


Hermitean matrices have real eigenvalues:


Eigenvectors with distinct eigenvalues are orthogonal:






Degeneracies and eigensubspaces :






Theorem: Hermitean operators are diagonalizable





Which is a polynomial equation in and therefore must have a solution.
Once a solution has been found one can consider a lower dimensional space and repeat.

Practically there are numerical linear algebra libraries (LAPACK etc) that do this.

Spectral representation:



Therefore all hermitean matrices are potential observables.

Alternatively if is not diagonal there exists unitary transformation and a corresponding basis such that

is diagonal.