Useful Identities in Quantum Optics

Nicol as Quesada M.
Instituto de F sica, Universidad de Antioquia

Notation
Latin letters with caret ( a, x , y , z ) denote linear operators. Greek letters (, ) denote C numbers. The hermitian adjoint of a is denoted a . The commutator of two operators x and y is dened as: [ x, y ] := x y y x

Leibnizs law
[ x, y z ] = [ x, y ] z+y [ x, z ] [ xy , z ] = [ x, z ] y+x [ y, z ]

Jacobi Identity
[ x, [ y, z ]] + [ y , [ z, x ]] + [ z , [ x, y ]] = 0

Baker-Campbell-Hausdor formula
If [ x, [ x, y ]] = [ y , [ x, y ]] = 0 then: 1 + y y x, y ] ex e = exp ex = exp [ 2 1 x [ x, y ] ey e 2

Hadamard lemma
ix eix y e = y + i[ x, y ] +

(i)2 [ x, [ x, y ]] + . . . 2!

Identities for Bosonic Operators

The bosonic operators a and a satisfy [ a, a ] = 1 [ a, f ( a, a )] = f a f a

[ a , f ( a, a )] =
a ea f ( a, a )ea
a

= f ( ae , a e )

References
[1] J.J. Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics, Addison Wesley Longman [2] M.O. Scully, M.S. Zubairy Quantum Optics, Cambridge University Press.