Quantum physics TFY-3.4323 Exercise 1 January 25th, 2013, 12.15 p.m.

, Nano building room 228 Work with the problems before the exercise session and tell which problems you have managed to solve at the beginning of the exercise session. Be prepared to present your solution for the class. You get a bonus for your midterm score based on how many problems you have solved. As an extra encouragement, some problems give double points in this scoring, see for instance problem 3 in this set.

Exercises 1
1. a) Show that the time-dependent Schr odinger equation may be written as
t

1 | (t) = | (0) + i h
0

d t H (t ) | (t )

b)

Show that the preceding equation leads to the following formal series (It is the Neumann-Liouville expansion.) t t t 1 1 d t H (t ) + dt | (t) = 1 + d t H (t )H (t ) + . . . | (0) i h (i h)2
0 0 0

c)

Show that the nth order term in this series may be written as
t t

(n)

1 (t) = n!(i h)n

0

d t1 d tn T (H (t1 ) H (tn )) | (0) ,

where T is the time ordering operator dened so that for the operators A and B T (A(t)B (t )) = A(t)B (t ) T (A(t)B (t )) = B (t )A(t) d) if t > t if t > t
t

i Show that this leads to the form U (t) = T exp( h

d H ( )) given in
0

equation (2.7) in the lecture notes. e)

i In some cases, a simpler formula U (t) = exp( h t

d H ( )) without T
0

is valid. When? (Hint: When is time ordering irrelevant?) 2. Derive the Heisenberg equation of motion i.e. equation (2.18) in the lecture d notes. (Hint: To obtain dt U 1 take the time derivative of U U 1 = I in which I is the identity operator.) 3. (Double points.) Consider a perturbed (1D) harmonic oscillator H = H0 + a+a )f (t). Let us assume that V (t), where H0 = h 0 n +1 2 and V (t) = V0 ( the initial state is the nth eigenstate of H0 , | (0) = |n .

a)

Calculate the state |I (t) using rst order time dependent perturbation theory. b) Show that | m| (t) |2 = | m|I (t) |2 i.e. the transition probability is the same in Schr odinger and interaction pictures. (If you do not remember the basics of the 1D harmonic oscillator take a look at the previous courses or course books.) Show that d i T exp dt h
t

4. a)

i i d H ( ) = H (t)T exp h h

d H ( ) .

t0

t0 t

b)

i Write down Eq. (2.26) in the lecture notes starting from UI (t) = T exp h

d VI ( )
t0

in which VI = H . Questions? Contact the assistant miikka.heikkinen@aalto..