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Sakurai 3.1
Sakurai 3.1
Sakurai 3.1
34
Chapter Three
1. Note: The original solution manual does not answer this problem correctly.The eigenvalues
.
⌥ satisfy ⌥2 i( i) = ⌥2 1 = 0, i.e. ⌥ = ±1, as they must be, since Sy = (h̄/2)⌦y has
eigenvalues ±h̄/2. The eigenvectors are well known by now, namely
⌦ ↵ ⌦ ↵ ⌦ ↵
. 1 1 . 1 1 .
|Sy ; +↵ = and |Sy ; ↵ = so, for | ↵=
2 i 2 i ⇥
where | |2 +|⇥|2 = 1, the probability of finding Sy = +h̄/2 is |⌦Sy ; +| ↵|2 = |( i⇥)/ 2|2 =
(1 + Im( ⇥ ⇥))/2. Clearly this gives the right answer for | ↵ = |Sy ; ±↵. It might have been
more interesting, though, to ask for the expectation value of Sy , namely
⌦ ↵⌦ ↵
h̄ ⇤ ⇥ ⇥ ⌅ 0 i h̄ h̄
⌦ |Sy | ↵ = ⇥ = i (⇥ ⇥ ⇥
⇥) = Im( ⇥ ⇥)
2 i 0 ⇥ 2 2
.
2. Since S = (h̄/2) , the matrix representation of the Hamiltonian is
. Bz Bx + iBy
H=µ
Bx iBy Bz
See (3.3.7) and (3.3.10). We want to find expressions for the complex numbers a and b in
terms of our real parameters a0 , a1 , a2 , and a3 . To do this, write
1 a0 a2 + 2ia0 a3 2a0 a2 + 2ia0 a1
1
U = AAA 1 (A† ) 1
= A2 (A† A) 1
= A2 =
2 2 2a0 a2 + 2ia0 a1 a0 a2 2ia0 a3
!
so cos(↵/2) = Re(a) = (a0 a2 )/ 2 which gives sin(↵/2) = 1 cos2 (↵/2) = 2a0 |a|/ 2 ,
and nx = Im(b)/ sin(↵/2) = a1 /|a|; ny = Re(b)/ sin(↵/2) = a2 /|a|; and
nz = Im(a)/ sin(↵/2) = a3 /|a|.