Solutions to the Problems 137

(3.102)
In a sense, d-electrons in t a g states behave as if they were pelectrons carrying
I = 1: their angular momentum is not fully quenched.
Caution has to be excercised in using the t z g p equivalence: naturally, the
d-electrons cannot have become pelectrons! After all, all the states are (by
construction) pure d-shell states so that for them L2 = 6 remains strictly true.
The reaolution of the apparent contradiction is that the true angular momen-
tum matrices are the 5 x 5 matrices listed in (3.99). By restricting the Hilbert
space to the three-dimensional subspace of the tzg-states, we have discarded
off-diagonal elements of L which connect the tzg and eg subspaces. L(t2g)
is only a “pseudo angular momentum”; it is easy to convince ourselves that
its components do not satisfy the commutation relations expected of a “true”
angular momentum. However, if the tzg-eg splitting is large, the off-diagonal
elements cannot matter much, and the equivalence has practical usefulness.
On the other hand, within the e, subspace all matrix elements are zero;
this means that the angular momentum of the e,-electrons is fully quenched.
Problem 3.4. Regarding the 3 8 configuration as a single-hole system, we
have a one-particle problem to solve. For the hole, the spin-orbit coupling is
(with A > 0, the negative sign is according to (2.70))

?is0 = -AS
x
- L = -XSZL2 - -(S+L- + s-L+) (3.103)
2
where we have to take L = 2, S = 1/2.
a) In the absence of the spin-orbit coupling, the ground state of the hole

-
is twofold degenerate, the two states being $(&)a and $(Blt)P, where a and
+
P are the t and 4 spin eigenstates. Recalling that $(Bit) (Y,” YL2)/.\/2
-
(and similarly $(B2t) (Y; - YF2)/.\/2), we find that

(3.104)

The spin-orbit term couples the crystal field levels with the matrix elements
l t-A
( $ ( ~ a t ) ~ l ~ s o I $ ( B= )~) (3.105)