PHASM426 / PHAS4426

Advanced Quantum Theory Problem Sheet 1

To be handed in by 5pm on Tuesday 27th October 2015 (extended deadline)
Please hand in your completed work at the end of the lecture on that day. If you are
unable to attend the lecture, you may scan your work, save it as a single PDF file
and email it to me prior to this lecture. You may also bring the work to me in my
office (B12) before the lecture. Make sure your completed work is clearly labelled
with your name and college. Please note that UCL places severe penalties on latesubmitted work.
1. Consider two arbitrary vectors |1 i and |2 i belonging to the inner product space
H. Show that these vectors satisfy the following inequalities:
(a)
h1 |1 i + h2 |2 i 2Re(h1 |2 i) .
You may start this proof by considering the vector |i = |1 i |2 i.

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(b)
|||1 i + |2 i|| |||1 i|| + |||2 i||
p
where |||vi|| = hv|vi denotes the norm of vector |vi. This is known
as the triangle inequality. You may use, without proof, the fact that these
vectors satisfy the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality i.e. |h1 |2 i|2 h1 |1 i
h2 |2 i.

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2. Let K be the operator defined as K = |ih|, where |i and |i are two vectors
of the Hilbert space of a quantum system.
(a) Show that K is a linear operator.

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(b) Under which condition is K Hermitian?

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(c) Under which condition is K a projector?

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(d) Show that K can always be written in the form K = P P , where is

a constant and P and P are the projector operators associated to |i and
|i.

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3. Let A and B be operators representing observables of a quantum system. Prove

that the product AB can be written as AB = X + i Y , where X and Y are
Hermitian and are given by
1
X = (AB + BA) and
2

Y =

1
[A, B].
2i
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4. The Gram-Schmidt algorithm allows the constructionf of an orthonormal basis

based on a set of (non-normalised) linearly independent basis vectors. The following projector properties are the basis of this algorithm.
(a) Let |1 i and |2 i be normalised, linearly independent but non-orthogonal
vectors. Prove that 1 |1 ih1 | is a projector and that (1 |1 ih1 |)|2 i
is orthogonal to |1 i.

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The Gram-Schmidt process uses this property recursively to generate a set of

orthogonal states. Let |j i be a set of linearly independent vectors in an ndimensional space, and let |j i be the set of orthonormal basis vectors output by
the Gram-Schmidt process, where j spans from 1 to n. The process proceeds as
follows (where step ii) is written explicitly for didactic reasons).
i) Let
|1 i =
ii) Let
|2 i =

|1 i
.
|||1 i||

(1 |1 ih1 |)|2 i
.
||(1 |1 ih1 |)|2 i||

iii) For m = 3 to n let

|m i =

(1

Pm1

|j ihj |)|m i

||(1

Pm1

|j ihj |)|m i||

j=1

j=1

(b) Consider the vector space of polynomials in x with the inner product defined as
Z
2
(f (x), g(x)) =
ex f (x) g(x)dx hf |gi

and the norm defined by the inner product, e.g. ||f || =

Consider the vectors

(f, f ) =

p
hf |f i.

|0 i = 1 |1 i = x |2 i = x2 |3 i = x3 .
Implement the Gram-Schmidt process to construct an orthonormal basis
beginning with |0 i.
The polynomials you are deriving should look familiar. Up to a normalisation constant they are the Hermite polynomials you encounter in the
wave-functions of a quantum harmonic oscillator.
5. Consider two orthonormal linearly independent basis {|1 i, |2 i |n i} and
{|1 i, |2 i |n i}. Show that there is a unitary transformation U such that
U |i i = |i i

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6. Consider two distinct sets of complete orthonormal basis vectors {|uj i} and
{|vk i}. By defining the trace of an operator A with respect to each of these
basis sets, show that the trace of an operator is basis invariant.

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7. Consider a Hermitian operator A with eigenvalues {1 , 2 , n } and eigenvectors {|1 i, |2 i |n i}. Show that A can be written in terms of a unitary
transformation U as A = U DU , where D is a diagonal matrix.

[1]

A Olaya-Castro, October 2015