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Operator (physics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In physics, an operator is a function over a space of physical states to another space of physical states. The
simplest example of the utility of operators is the study of symmetry (which makes the concept of a group
useful in this context). Because of this, they are a very useful tool in classical mechanics. Operators are even
more important in quantum mechanics, where they form an intrinsic part of the formulation of the theory.

Contents
1 Operators in classical mechanics
1.1 Table of classical mechanics operators
2 Generators
3 The exponential map
4 Operators in quantum mechanics
4.1 Wavefunction
4.2 Linear operators in wave mechanics
4.3 Commutation of operators on
4.4 Expectation values of operators on
4.5 Hermitian operators
4.6 Operators in matrix mechanics
4.7 Inverse of an operator
4.8 Table of QM operators
4.9 Examples of applying quantum operators
5 See also
6 References

Operators in classical mechanics

In classical mechanics, the movement of a particle (or system of particles) is completely determined by the
Lagrangian or equivalently the Hamiltonian , a function of the generalized coordinates q,
generalized velocities and its conjugate momenta:

If either L or H are independent of a generalized coordinate q, meaning the L and H do not change when q is
changed, which in turn means the dynamics of the particle are still the same even when q changes, the
corresponding momenta conjugate to those coordinates will be conserved (this is part of Noether's theorem,
and the invariance of motion with respect to the coordinate q is a symmetry). Operators in classical
mechanics are related to these symmetries.

More technically, when H is invariant under the action of a certain group of transformations G:

the elements of G are physical operators, which map physical states among themselves.

Table of classical mechanics operators

Transformation Operator Position Momentum

Translational symmetry
Time translation symmetry
Rotational invariance
Galilean transformations
Parity
T-symmetry

where is the rotation matrix about an axis dened by the unit vector and angle .

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Generators
If the transformation is innitesimal, the operator action should be of the form

where is the identity operator, is a parameter with a small value, and will depend on the transformation
at hand, and is called a generator of the group. Again, as a simple example, we will derive the generator of
the space translations on 1D functions.

As it was stated, . If is innitesimal, then we may write

This formula may be rewritten as

where is the generator of the translation group, which in this case happens to be the derivative operator.
Thus, it is said that the generator of translations is the derivative.

The exponential map

The whole group may be recovered, under normal circumstances, from the generators, via the exponential
map. In the case of the translations the idea works like this.

The translation for a nite value of may be obtained by repeated application of the innitesimal translation:

with the standing for the application times. If is large, each of the factors may be considered to be
innitesimal:

But this limit may be rewritten as an exponential:

To be convinced of the validity of this formal expression, we may expand the exponential in a power series:

The right-hand side may be rewritten as

which is just the Taylor expansion of , which was our original value for .

The mathematical properties of physical operators are a topic of great importance in itself. For further
information, see C*-algebra and Gelfand-Naimark theorem.

Operators in quantum mechanics

The mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics (QM) is built upon the concept of an operator.

The wavefunction represents the probability amplitude of nding the system in that state. The terms
"wavefunction" and "state" in QM context are usually used interchangeably.

Physical pure states in quantum mechanics are represented as unit-norm vectors (probabilities are
normalized to one) in a special complex Hilbert space. Time evolution in this vector space is given by the
application of the evolution operator.

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Any observable, i.e., any quantity which can be measured in a physical experiment, should be associated with
a self-adjoint linear operator. The operators must yield real eigenvalues, since they are values which may
come up as the result of the experiment. Mathematically this means the operators must be Hermitian.[1] The
probability of each eigenvalue is related to the projection of the physical state on the subspace related to that
eigenvalue. See below for mathematical details.

In the wave mechanics formulation of QM, the wavefunction varies with space and time, or equivalently
momentum and time (see position and momentum space for details), so observables are dierential operators.

In the matrix mechanics formulation, the norm of the physical state should stay xed, so the evolution
operator should be unitary, and the operators can be represented as matrices. Any other symmetry, mapping
a physical state into another, should keep this restriction.

Wavefunction

The wavefunction must be square-integrable (see Lp spaces), meaning:

and normalizable, so that:

Two cases of eigenstates (and eigenvalues) are:

for discrete eigenstates forming a discrete basis, so the state is a sum

where ci are complex numbers such that |ci|2 = ci*ci = probability of measuring the state , and has
the corresponding set of eigenvalues ai is also discrete - either nite or countably innite,

for a continuum of eigenstates forming a continuous basis, so the state is an integral

where c() is a complex function such that |c()|2 = c()*c() = probability of measuring the state ,
there is an uncountably innite set of eigenvalues a.

Linear operators in wave mechanics

Let be the wavefunction for a quantum system, and be any linear operator for some observable A (such
as position, momentum, energy, angular momentum etc.), then

where:

a is the eigenvalue of the operator, corresponding to the measured value of the observable, i.e.
observable A has a measured value a
is the eigenfunction of if this relation holds.

If is an eigenfunction of a given operator A, then a denite quantity (the eigenvalue a) will be observed if a
measurement of the observable A is made on the state . Conversely, if is not an eigenfunction of A, then it
has no eigenvalue for A, and the observable does not have a single denite value in that case. Instead,
measurements of the observable A will yield each eigenvalue with a certain probability (related to the
decomposition of relative to the orthonormal eigenbasis of A).

In braket notation the above can be written;

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in which case is an eigenvector, or eigenket.

Due to linearity, vectors can be dened in any number of dimensions, as each component of the vector acts on
the function separately. One mathematical example is the del operator, which is itself a vector (useful in
momentum-related quantum operators, in the table below).

An operator in n-dimensional space can be written:

where ej are basis vectors corresponding to each component operator Aj. Each component will yield a
corresponding eigenvalue. Acting this on the wave function :

in which

In braket notation:

Commutation of operators on

If two observables A and B have linear operators and , the commutator is dened by,

The commutator is itself a (composite) operator. Acting the commutator on gives:

If is an eigenfunction with eigenvalues a and b for observables A and B respectively, and if the operators
commute:

then the observables A and B can be measured simultaneously with innite precision i.e. uncertainties
, simultaneously. is then said to be the simultaneous eigenfunction of A and B. To illustrate
this:

It shows that measurement of A and B does not cause any shift of state i.e. initial and nal states are same
(no disturbance due to measurement). Suppose we measure A to get value a. We then measure B to get the
value b. We measure A again. We still get the same value a. Clearly the state () of the system is not
destroyed and so we are able to measure A and B simultaneously with innite precision.

If the operators do not commute:

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they can't be prepared simultaneously to arbitrary precision, and there is an uncertainty relation between the
observables,

even if is an eigenfunction the above relation holds.. Notable pairs are position and momentum, and energy
and time - uncertainty relations, and the angular momenta (spin, orbital and total) about any two orthogonal
axes (such as Lx and Ly, or sy and sz etc.).[2]

Expectation values of operators on

The expectation value (equivalently the average or mean value) is the average measurement of an observable,
for particle in region R. The expectation value of the operator is calculated from:[3]

This can be generalized to any function F of an operator:

An example of F is the 2-fold action of A on , i.e. squaring an operator or doing it twice:

Hermitian operators

The denition of a Hermitian operator is:[1]

Following from this, in braket notation:

Important properties of Hermitian operators include:

real eigenvalues,
eigenvectors with dierent eigenvalues are orthogonal,
eigenvectors can be chosen to be a complete orthonormal basis,

Operators in matrix mechanics

An operator can be written in matrix form to map one basis vector to another. Since the operators are linear,
the matrix is a linear transformation (aka transition matrix) between bases. Each basis element can be
connected to another,[3] by the expression:

which is a matrix element:

A further property of a Hermitian operator is that eigenfunctions corresponding to dierent eigenvalues are
orthogonal.[1] In matrix form, operators allow real eigenvalues to be found, corresponding to measurements.

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Orthogonality allows a suitable basis set of vectors to represent the state of the quantum system. The
eigenvalues of the operator are also evaluated in the same way as for the square matrix, by solving the
characteristic polynomial:

where I is the n n identity matrix, as an operator it corresponds to the identity operator. For a discrete
basis:

while for a continuous basis:

Inverse of an operator

A non-singular operator has an inverse dened by:

If an operator has no inverse, it is a singular operator. In a nite-dimensional space, an operator is non-

singular if and only if its determinant is nonzero:

and hence the determinant is zero for a singular operator.

Table of QM operators

The operators used in quantum mechanics are collected in the table below (see for example, [1][4]). The bold-
face vectors with circumexes are not unit vectors, they are 3-vector operators; all three spatial components
taken together.

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Operator Cartesian component General denition SI Dimension

(common unit
name/s)
Position m [L]

Momentum General General Js [M] [L]

m1 [T]1
=N
s

Electromagnetic eld Electromagnetic eld (uses kinetic Js [M] [L]

momentum, A = vector potential) m1 [T]1
=N
s

Kinetic Translation J [M] [L]2

energy [T]2

Electromagnetic eld Electromagnetic eld (A = vector J [M] [L]2

potential) [T]2

Rotation (I = moment of Rotation J [M] [L]2

inertia) [T]2

Potential N/A J [M] [L]2

energy [T]2

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Total energy N/A Time-dependent potential: J [M] [L]2

[T]2

Time-independent:

Hamiltonian J [M] [L]2

[T]2

Angular J s = [M] [L]2

momentum N s [T]1
operator m1

Spin angular J s = [M] [L]2

momentum N s [T]1
m1
where is the vector whose
components are the pauli matrices.

where

are the pauli matrices for

spin- particles.

Total J s = [M] [L]2

angular N s [T]1
momentum m1

Transition C m [I] [T] [L]

dipole
moment
(electric)

Examples of applying quantum operators

The procedure for extracting information from a wave function is as follows. Consider the momentum p of a
particle as an example. The momentum operator in one dimension is:

Letting this act on we obtain:

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if is an eigenfunction of , then the momentum eigenvalue p is the value of the particle's momentum, found
by:

For three dimensions the momentum operator uses the nabla operator to become:

In Cartesian coordinates (using the standard Cartesian basis vectors ex, ey, ez) this can be written;

that is:

The process of nding eigenvalues is the same. Since this is a vector and operator equation, if is an
eigenfunction, then each component of the momentum operator will have an eigenvalue corresponding to that
component of momentum. Acting on obtains:

See also
Bounded linear operator Representation theory

References
1. Molecular Quantum Mechanics Parts I and II: An Introduction to Quantum Chemistry (Volume 1), P.W. Atkins,
Oxford University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-19-855129-0
2. Ballentine, L. E. (1970), "The Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" (http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103
/RevModPhys.42.358), Reviews of Modern Physics, 42: 358381, Bibcode:1970RvMP...42..358B
(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1970RvMP...42..358B), doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.42.358 (https://doi.org
/10.1103%2FRevModPhys.42.358)
3. Quantum Mechanics Demystied, D. McMahon, Mc Graw Hill (USA), 2006, ISBN 0-07-145546-9
4. Quanta: A handbook of concepts, P.W. Atkins, Oxford University Press, 1974, ISBN 0-19-855493-1

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