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A full quantum analysis of the SternGerlach experiment using the evolution operator method:

analyzing current issues in teaching quantum mechanics

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2017 Eur. J. Phys. 38 025403

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 European Journal of Physics
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 (24pp) doi:10.1088/1361-6404/aa51ad

A full quantum analysis of the Stern

Gerlach experiment using the evolution
operator method: analyzing current issues
in teaching quantum mechanics
E Bentez Rodrguez, L M Arvalo Aguilar and
E Piceno Martnez
Facultad de Ciencias Fsico Matemticas, Benemrita Universidad de Puebla, 18 Sur y
Avenida San Claudio, Col. San Manuel. C.P: 72520, Puebla, Pue., Mxico

E-mail: larevalo@fcfm.buap.mx

Received 3 August 2016, revised 25 November 2016

Accepted for publication 5 December 2016
Published 23 January 2017

Abstract
To the quantum mechanics specialists community it is a well-known fact that
the famous original SternGerlach experiment (SGE) produces entanglement
between the external degrees of freedom (position) and the internal degree of
freedom (spin) of silver atoms. Despite this fact, almost all textbooks on
quantum mechanics explain this experiment using a semiclassical approach,
where the external degrees of freedom are considered classical variables, the
internal degree is treated as a quantum variable, and Newtons second law is
used to describe the dynamics. In the literature there are some works that
analyze this experiment in its full quantum mechanical form. However,
astonishingly, to the best of our knowledge the original experiment, where the
initial states of the spin degree of freedom are randomly oriented coming from
the oven, has not been analyzed yet in the available textbooks using the
Schrdinger equation (to the best of our knowledge there is only one paper
that treats this case: Hsu et al (2011 Phys. Rev. A 83 012109)). Therefore, in
this contribution we use the time-evolution operator to give a full quantum
mechanics analysis of the SGE when the initial state of the internal degree of
freedom is completely random, i.e. when it is a statistical mixture. Addition-
ally, as the SGE and the development of quantum mechanics are heavily
intermingled, we analyze some features and drawbacks in the current teaching
of quantum mechanics. We focus on textbooks that use the SGE as a starting
point, based on the fact that most physicist do not use results from physics
education research, and comment on traditional pedagogical attitudes in the
physics community.

0143-0807/17/025403+24$33.00 2017 European Physical Society Printed in the UK 1

Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Keywords: SternGerlach experiment, quantum mechanics, physics education

research

1. Introduction

Learning and teaching quantum mechanics (QM) are challenging ventures because phe-
nomena in the quantum world behave quite counterintuitively. For this reason, there is no
consensus on style of presentation nor in the choice of the fundamental quantum phenomena
to begin with. In fact, for some decades there have been mainly two competing approaches to
teaching QM: (i) the usual approach which begins with unidimensional models (like the
innite well potential) and set off at a steady pace to teach the fundamental concepts and
principles, and (ii) what is called the modern way which consists of facing, from the
beginning, phenomena that allegedly do not use any classical concept to explain their
dynamics, like the SternGerlach experiment (SGE). Due to this situation, the teaching of QM
deserves an innovative approach and careful investigation; part of this has been developed by
the physics education research (PER) community.
Over 40 years there has been accumulative scientic evidence regarding the fact that the
traditional instruction strategies followed by physicists do not work. This fact launched the
PER area as a subeld of physics [1]. Many scientic facts found by this new eld were
conrmed by many scientic teams around the world. The PER community reached the
agreement that the traditional way of teaching produces poor conceptual understanding.
Additionally, experimental results demonstrated that new developed forms of teaching pro-
duce better results both in conceptual understanding and in problem solving skills [2].
However, despite many effort to produce novel answers to the question of how to teach
QM from the PER community, the standard way of teaching QM followed by most physicists
is the traditional one, i.e. the transmission model of instruction where the teacher is the
transmitter of knowledge and the student is the receiver [3, 4], the main resources to teach
QM are strongly based on textbooks [5] and there is no active engagement of students where
they can display and develop scientic skills. For an illustration of traditional and actual
classroom practices see, for example, the videos for the 2013 QM course at MIT Open-
CourseWare web page [6] or the way QM courses are currently being taught in many
universities around the world; for a study of the state of affairs in US universities see [7].
In sharp contrast, the scientic approach used to analyze and investigate the teaching
process which is being developed and guided by PER [3, 5, 712] shows that students must
be actively engaged in exertions that promote the acquisition of fundamental scientic skills
like, for example, the skill to use scientic discovered knowledge to explain phenomena, the
skill to work in a team, the skill to formulate and solve problems, the skill to organize
knowledge [12], skills of independent investigation, the skill to plan an experiment or
investigation, the skill to effectively communicate their reasoning, etc. Curiously, the skill to
explain phenomena is not explicitly listed in the Subject Benchmark Statement Physics,
Astronomy and Astrophysics: Draft for Consultation [13]. It is also not stated in the Physics
Degree document [14]; neither mentions the skill to organize knowledge [13, 14]. The skill to
explain phenomena is stated in Etkina et al [15] as the ability to tailor and check an
explanation. The skill to organize knowledge is only stated explicitly by Reif [12] and
Mestre [3].
The rationale to develop the skill to explain phenomena using scientically developed
knowledge is that science is a method that produces reliable knowledge experimentally and
theoretically tested (subjected to preestablished impersonal criteria, as Mertons canon

2
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

establishes [16]), this knowledge is systematized in a few laws, theories, or principles which
are used to explain phenomena and think up predictions. In fact, this is the strongest char-
acteristic of scientic knowledge and, of course, this is the characteristic of scientic teaching
developed in the PER eld; that is to say, it is based on scientic knowledge experimentally
and theoretically tested which serves to explain the phenomena of learning and teaching
physics. It is worth emphasizing that one of the most cherished scientic skills is precisely the
explanation of diverse phenomena based on scientically acquired knowledge, therefore the
acquisition of this skill has to be one of the main goals for students.
This rationale stands in total contrast to most textbooks of QM that treat the SGE as a
starting point for a course. In this case there is not any explanation in terms of the QM
postulates, principles, or laws. In fact a typical textbooks explanation uses the Newtons law
approach; that is, atoms experience a force that produces a splitting of the beam:
B
F = (m B) = mz z . ( 1)
z
The nal splitting depends on the value of mz . The quantum features only originate because mz
is quantized, this quantization causes equation (1) to predict only two beams for spin 1/2
particles. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the last right part of equation (1) does not obey
Maxwells equations.
Paradoxically, many newly developed forms of teaching QM strongly rely on pre-
sentation and choices of explanations given in textbooks, with the SGE being an illustrative
example. By means of illustration let us recall the recent work where a team from Oregon
State University presented a syllabus and textbook [17] directly tailor-made from the text-
books of Feynman [18], Sakurai [20], and Townsend [21]. McIntyres book [17] synthesizes
the actual effort to present a QM course that uses the two state system as the staring point to
teach QM and which uses the SGE to exemplify the strange quantum behavior of physical
systems with a two-state spin one-half system; see also the web page of the Institute of
Physics (http://quantumphysics.iop.org/) [22]. It is important to mention that Sakurai and
Townsends textbooks are intended for use in advanced QM courses as the authors them-
selves explain in the preface of both textbooks. Additionally, see the work of Zhu and Singh
[23], these authors propose to use the SGE as a useful resource for teaching QM; however,
they also rely on the texbook approach explanation where the atoms split in two beams after
traversing an SGE. This split effect comes from equation (1). As is well know, the atoms
which traverse an SGE become a superposition of states, in fact entangled states, where it is
not possible to assign a path to the atoms, see section 3 below. Therefore claims like the
beams separate into two when crossing a SternGerlach experiment, that comes in Problem
5 of the test that appears in the appendix of [23], do not make sense in a quantum mechanical
context (the test in paper [23] relies on concepts and approaches developed in textbooks).
It is important to highlight the logical inconsistency of this approach and to point out that
it does not resist a theoretical analysis. Generally, introductory courses on QM start by
teaching how to predict the dynamics of the evolution of a quantum system by solving the
Schrdinger equation when the system is in a potential that allows an analytical solution, like
the square well potential or the harmonic oscillator potential. Then, when faced with the task
of predicting the dynamical evolution of atoms that traverse an SGE, many textbooks use an
approach that relies on Newtons equation (1), justify the existence of a classical trajectory
because the atoms are very heavy [19, 20] and the correlation, when it is stated, is between the
dp
external momentum F = dt and the internal degree of freedom variable, i.e. spin [25]. In fact,
this logical inconsistency (i.e. to use Newtons laws instead of quantum postulates) that
appears in many textbooks [19, 21] means that even after many readings students do not fully

3
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

understand the dynamics of SGE. With regard to the mass of atoms being used to justify
classical trajectories, we recall that nowadays an active research area of quantum optics is the
generation of entangled states between electromagnetic modes and mirrors that form a cavity
[24]. In this case the vibrational modes of the mirror (which are much more heavy than an
atom) are treated as quantum variables. Therefore, classical trajectories are theoretically not
fully justied in the analysis of the SGE.
This work has two goals: (i) to realize a full quantum analysis of the SGE in a simple
form using the evolution operator method and (ii) a concise analysis of the current issues in
the teaching of QM. The full analysis of the SGE is the main goal of this work, the second
goal is peripheral. Both of these, teaching of QM and the SGE, are intermingled and
entangled in quite complex ways due to the history and inuence of the SGE in the devel-
opment and teaching of QM.
Teaching and learning are complex activities that involve many resources and issues.
(i) The characteristics of the subject area.
(ii) The available resources like textbooks, teachers, laboratories, library (access to online
journals), and information and communication technologies, etc.
(iii) The main models used to explain the phenomena of the subject area.
(iv) The traditions on the subject scientic community.
In all points of the previous list, the SGE plays a major role on teaching QM. Therefore,
this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we review the main points on the discovery
and role of the SGE in QM.
In section 3, which is the core of this work, we analyze the SGE in a full quantum form
using the postulates of QM and the evolution operator method. We analytically demonstrate
that the effect of the magnetic gradient is to produce an entangled state between the internal
and external degrees of freedom.
The facts stated above and the concern to realize a science textbook analysis made it
necessary to revise some of the most used textbooks for teaching QM. Therefore, in section 4
we briey state some shortcomings of the most used books that begin by analyzing the SGE.
In particular, we shown that the usual semiclassical approximation that is used in most
textbooks to explain the SGE is seriously awed.
Finally, in section 5, we show an additional drawback that current practices in teaching
QM have; some of these practices are motivated by the intention of beginning an introductory
QM course using the SGE as a starting point.

2. The SternGerlach experiment

In this section we give a concise review of the history and importance of the SGE. For a
complete account of the historical facts, please see [2630].
First we review the Zeeman effect. This effect was rst predicted by Faraday in 1845 [27]
who believed that a magnetic eld could have a possible inuence on the spectral lines when
matter is allowed to irradiate when it is placed in that magnetic eld. Faraday experimentally
tested his prediction in 1862 but he was unable to nd scientic evidence for its conrmation
[27]. In 1893, Zeeman thought about the possibilities of such an effect, but it was not until
1896 that he was able to conrm that prediction [27]. However, from 1897 there were
experimental results that showed that there were more spectral lines than the ones expected.
This was called the anomalous Zeeman effect.

4
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Figure 1. Array of the SGE. Notice that in this gure there are not two classical paths.
Instead there are two potentially possible outcomes, represented by the dotted lines.

On the other hand, in 1921, Stern proposed a crucial experiment to decide between two
rival theories: the classical Larmor theory and the DebyeSommerfeld quantum theory. Both
theories predicted different behavior for a gas of atoms when crossing a magnetic eld. The
DebyeSommerfeld theory is based on the planetary atom model of Bohr and predicts a space
quantization of the angular momentum. The goal of Stern was to experimentally corroborate
this space quantization; spin was not yet been discovered at that time. This idea came to Stern
when thinking about whether a gas might be magnetically birefringent [29, 30]. In
approaching this goal, Stern and Gerlach initiated an experimental technique to produce
atomic beams. However, the main signicance of their experiment was that, ve years after its
completion, the experimental results were used to conrm the theoretical prediction of the
existence of a new internal degree of freedom of electrons, i.e. spin.
In 1925, Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit, and independently Kroning, predicted the existence
of an additional degree of freedom, spin, in an effort to explain many spectroscopic exper-
imental observations and the anomalous Zeeman effect. Originally they believed that this spin
was produced by rotation of the systems, but it turns out that this was an independent internal
spin that could not be associated with any rotation.
Since its inception, the SGE has played a crucial role in QM and its teaching. In teaching
it serves the purpose of introducing the internal spin of quantum systems and it is strongly
associated with the measurement process in QM.

3. The full quantum dynamics of the spin in a SternGerlach apparatus

In this core section of the paper, we use the postulates of QM to analyze the full quantum
dynamics of the SGE. We use as initial states of the spin both a complete random state, as in
section 3.2, because this is the state that is produced by an oven, and a superposition of the
eigenstates of sz , see section 3.3. Before this, in section 3.1 we review a particular solution
given in terms of spinor.
In order to be able to use QM postulates, it is necessary to factorize the evolution operator
U = e-itH . The factorization can be made in many ways, see [31, 32]. For example, a
5
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

factorization must be used to apply the solution for the Schrdinger equation:
y (r , t )
i = H y (r , t ) , (2)
t
where its general solution for time-independent Hamiltonians, is given by
- it
y (r , t ) = exp H y (r , 0) , (3)

y (r, 0) is the state of the system at initial time, t=0. Further, notice that H is in general of
the form A + B , with A and B operators. Thus, the factorization of el (A + B ) and its application
to an initial state of the system gives the dynamical evolution.
In general, the Hamiltonian of the SGE is given by
- 2 2
H = + mc (s B) , (4)
2m
e
where mc = g 4m , g is the gyromagnetic ratio, s is the Pauli spin matrices vector, and B is the
e

inhomogeneus magnetic eld of the form B = -bx + (B0 + bz ) k . In many works where
SGE is studied [3337] the contribution of the coordinate x of the magnetic eld (see
gure 1) is negligible due to the rapid precession of the magnetic moment around this eld
direction. We take this approach into account and discard the x component of the magnetic
eld. Then, applying the operators, we obtain the evolution of the atoms that traverse the
SternGerlach apparatus.
Therefore the solution for the SGE is given by
-2 2 + m ( s B )
- it

y (r , t ) = U (t ) y (r , 0) = e 2m c y ( r , 0). (5)
A more general state of the SGE is given by the density operator r (t ) which obeys the
equation
r (r , t )
i = [H , r (r , t )] , (6)
t
and its solution is given by

r (r , t ) = U (t ) r (r , 0) U (t ). ( 7)

3.1. The spinor approach to the SternGerlach experiment

In a seminal paper Platt [33] uses a spinor approach to study the dynamics of the SGE. This
author uses as an initial state a superposition state of the spin operator sz , i.e. 1 ( z + z ),
2
and after discarding the fast evolving components Platt arrives at a set of two differential
equations:
2 2 gmbz y
- y+ - y+ = i + , (8)
2m 2 t
2 2 gmbz y
- y- + y = i - , (9)
2m 2 - t
then, using Ehrenfests theorem, Platt arrives to the conclusion that each spinor component
follows a macroscopically distinct trajectory, i.e. a classical trajectory.

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

The paper by Platt has been highly inuential to the study of a quantum version of the
SGE. Since its publication many authors have used Platts spinor approach to pursue the task
of fully understanding this experiment. Before reviewing these works, let us emphasize that
Platt does not solve equations (8) and (9). In the following we try to sketch a possible path to
a general solution of equation (8) by using the eigenstate method [32, 38, 39]; a similar path
can be used for equation (9).
The rst step to solve equation (8) is to use separation of variables between r and t, by
dening y+ = f (r ) j (t ). This gives
j (t ) = e -
iEt
(10)
2m gmb 2mE
2 f (r ) + zf (r ) = - f (r ). (11)
2 2
Now, to solve equation (11) we dene f (r ) = yx (x ) yy ( y) yz (z ). This gives the following set
of differential equations:
2yx (x ) 2mE
= - 2 x yx (x ) , (12)
x 2
2yy ( y) 2mE y
=- yy ( y) , (13)
y 2 2

2yz (z ) 2m gmb 2mEz

+ zy (z ) = - yz (z ) , (14)
z 2 2 2 z 2
where we have set E = Ex + Ey + Ez . Then we notice that equations (12) and (13) are
similar to the unidimensional free particle equations, whose solutions e ikx x and e ik y y are not
normalizable. However, it is possible to construct a wave packet solution, in each case, given
by [38]:
k 2
1 i k x x - x t
yx (x , t ) =
2p - f (kx )e 2m
dk x, (15)

k y2
i k y y - t
1 2m
yy ( y , t ) =
2p - f (k y )e dk y, (16)
2mEx 2mE y
- yx (x, 0) e-ikx xdx
1 1
where kx2 = 2
, k y2 = , f (kx ) = and f (k y ) =
2 2p 2p

- yy ( y, 0) e-ik y ydy .
On the other hand, equation (14) is an Airy equation whose solutions are the Airy
functions Ai and Bi.
By dening, in equation (14),
E 2mF
x = z + z 2 z , (17)
Fz
where Fz = gmb 2 [40], we arrive at the Airy equation:
2yx (x )
+ xyx (x ) = 0. (18)
x 2

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

The solution to equation (18) is given by the Airy functions Ai and Bi [40].
yx (x ) = NAi ( - x ) + MBi ( - x ) , (19)
where a normalization condition is set out as [40]

- y*x (x ) yx (x ) dx = d (Ez - Ez). (20)

Then, although the Airy function is not square integrable in the entire real numbers [40], in
principle it is possible to construct a wave packet solution of the Airy functions, given by

- f (Ez) yx (x ) e-
iEz t
yx (x , t ) = dEz , (21)

for a similar approach, see [41].

Therefore, a possible general solution to equation (8) could be thought of as a super-
position of the following wave functions:
y+ = yx (x , t ) yy ( y , t ) yx (x , t ) . (22)
At the end, what is really needed are the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the Hamil-
tonian, i.e. to solve the eigenvalue equation
- 2 2
H y (r ) = + mc (s B) y (r ) = Ey (r ) , (23)
2m
that is to say, a linear combination of the external and internal eigenfunctions.
We do not pursue this path in this paper, instead we use the evolution operator method
[31, 32, 39]. However, equation (22) serves the purpose of analyzing, in the following
pharagraphs, the solutions given by others authors to equation (8).
First, let us recall the work of Patil [42]. This author studies the quantum dynamics of the
SGE using a spinor Pauli equation, when the internal initial state is given by the superposition
states of the spin operator sz , i.e. 1 ( z + z ), and the evolved state is found using Green
2
integrals. This author clearly argues that there is not any collapse of the wave function in the
region where the magnetic eld operates on the atoms.
Secondly, Roston et al [43] study the entanglement in the SGE. They begin with the
same equations of Platt [33] given above; that is, they use as an internal initial state a
superposition state of the spin operator sz , 1 ( z + z ), and use a particular solution
2
given by the approach followed by Vandegrift [44]:
1
y (z , t ) = f z - z 0 - v0 t - ac t 2, t e iS (z, t ), (24)
2
where these authors clearly acknowledge the entanglement between the external and internal
degrees of freedom. This solution is a particular solution and does not use the traditional
method to solve the Schrdinger equation.
On the other hand, Home et al [34] arrive at the same equations given by Platt [33].
These authors use as an internal initial state a superposition state of the spin operator sz , i. e.
1
( z + z ). Although these authors do not explain how they solve equations (8) and (9)
2
the proposed solution does not follow the traditional methods for constructing a general
solution, therefore it is possible to infer that this is also a particular solution. These authors
study the overlap between the wave functions.
Finally, Hsu et al [45] study the dynamics of the SGE with quantum propagators. These
authors study one-dimensional (1D) and 2D inhomogeneities in the experiment. Notably,

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

these authors study the dynamics when the initial state is a random mixture and plot sz,
however they discard the y component and do not write down the solution for the mixture
case, although it is possible to deduce it from their equations. To the best of our knowledge,
this is the only case where this random initial state is used for the SGE.
It is worth emphasizing two aspects of these works.
(i) The majority use as initial internal state only a superposition state.
(ii) Many of them use only a particular solution of the Schrdinger equation.
In the following sections we give a general solution for this experiment using the
evolution operator method [31, 32, 39] and analyze the case when the initial internal state is a
random state. Please notice that an oven produces a random state of the internal degree of
freedom. The generality of the solution comes from y (x, t ) = e- h H y (x, 0) =
it

-
f (k ) e x (x ) dk for continuous eigenvalues, where x (x ) is the eigenfunction of H .
itE

3.2. Evolution of an initial random state of the internal degree of freedom

In order to obtain a solution to the SGE we need to establish a suitable initial state which
accurately represents the original SGE. In this experiment a beam of silver atoms comes from
an oven and passes a series of pinholes to select the ones that travel in the y direction.
Mathematically this means kx = kz = 0 (notice that in his analysis, Townsend [21] uses a slit
to select the atoms as Gerlach did, but mathematically this implies kx 0 ). Additionally, as
the spin orientation is random the internal degree of freedom is given by
( z z + z z )
. (25)
2
Therefore, an adequate initial state that represents the true physical state for the SGE is given
by

1
r (r, 0) = y0 ( z z + z z ) y0 (26)
2

with y0 a Gaussian wave packet

1 r2
y0 = exp - 2 + ik r , (27)
(2ps 20)3 4
4s 0

where s0 is the width of the wave packet, r is the position of the particle, and k is the wave
vector.
With these choices, and taking into account that kx = kz = 0 , the evolution operator for
the SGE is given by
-it -it 1 2
U = e 2m ( px + py ) e ( 2m pz + mc (Bo + bz ) sz) ,
2 2
(28)
then, the factorization of the operator evolution is given by (see the appendix)
itmc it 2mc b
U (t ) = e- 6 ke- 2m ( px + py ) e- (B0 + bz ) sz e- 2m pz sz e- 2m pz ,
1 it 2 2 it 2
(29)

where is given in the appendix.

Therefore, substituting equations (26), (27), and (29) into equation (7) we obtain the
evolution of the initial random state as

9
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

1 1 2s 20 4 2
r (r , t ) = M exp ( - 2s 0 k y ) exp -
2 2
(x + y - 4s0 k y )
2 2
t 2
2 4 s0 + 2m
4
( )
2
tys 20 k y 1 2s 20 t 2mc b
exp exp - z - z z
m [s04 + (t 2m)2 ] 4 s4 + t 2 2m

0 ( )
2m
2

1 2s 20 t 2mc b
+ exp - z + z z ,
4 s4 + t 2
2m
0 2m ( ) (30)
where M is given by
M = [s0 (2p )1 2 ]3 [s 20 + (it 2m)]-3 2 [s 20 - (it 2m)]-3 2 . (31)
To see how the exponential operators of pz and are applied to a wave function see [32]
pz2
and [46].
Equation (30) establishes that the action of the SGE is to produce an entangled state
between the internal degree of freedom and the external degree of freedom. This is an
entanglement between a discrete variable, the spin, and a continuos variable, the position of
the atoms [47]. The entanglement between continuous and discrete variables (CD-entangle-
ment) is reviewed in [47]. This result is in clear contrast with the semiclassical models found
in textbooks where the results are two beams with classical trajectories. Usually, CD-
entanglement is measured with the overlap integral of the different continuous variable wave
function [47].
It is worth mentioning that physically the most important fact that equation (30) implies
is that there are no classical trajectories. In this sense the atoms entering in the SGE behave
like photons crossing a beam splitter. This contrasts with the predicted behavior of atoms
from the analysis given in textbooks where the atoms behave like classical electromagnetic
radiation crossing a beam splitter.
To write it down clearly, what QM postulates predict is that the atoms coming from the
oven, and traversing the SGE, do not have a particular pre-existing value of their spin, neither
do they follow a classical path associated with the supposed pre-existing value of the spin.
What really happens is that the internal and external degrees of freedom become entangled. It
is the act of blocking one optional path that forces the atoms to acquire one of the two
possible values of both the spin and the position (path).

3.3. Evolution of an initial superposition state of the internal degree of freedom

In this section we analyze the behavior of an initial state given by pure states of the internal
and external degrees of freedom. We take as an initial state
y (0) = y0 (a z + b z ) (32)
where, again y0 is given by equation (27). Then the state in a posterior time is
y (t ) = U [y0 (a z + b z )]. (33)

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Applying U we obtain

y (t ) = U [y0 (a z + b z )]
it 3m2b 2 s0 3 2 2 it -3 2
= exp s + exp ( - s 20 k y2)
6m (2p )1 2 2m
0

i4ys 20 k y - (x 2 + y 2 - 4s4 k 2)
exp exp 0 y

4 (s 0 + it 2m)
2
4 (s 0 + it 2m)
2

- itmc t 2mc b
2
-1
a exp (B0 + bz ) exp z - z

4 (s 20 + it 2m) 2m

itm t 2mc b
2
-1
+ b exp c (B0 + bz ) exp z + z . (34)
4 (s 20 + it 2m) 2m

Again, this equation predicts the evolution towards an entangled state between the
internal and external degrees of freedom with the same implications that were explained in the
previous section. What equation (34) establishes is a pure entangled state. This is an analytical
equation obtained using only the approximation that the transverse oscillation of the magnetic
moment precession in the x direction is high.

4. Brief analysis of quantum mechanics textbooks

Due to the fact that in the teaching community of QM there is not full knowledge of the main
results of PER, textbooks play the role of being almost a unique tool when teaching [48].
Thus, it could be stated that textbooks become the curriculum and determine what are the
subjects to learn and teach in QM syllabus. Also, they are the source to organize the
instruction and assign homework. However it was shown that usually textbooks have some
failures; for example, they do not provide a reliable picture of how scientic knowledge is
discovered [48]. For these reasons the eld of textbooks analysis has been developed [48]. In
this section we give a short analysis regarding how QM textbooks address the SGE.
In [49], Carr and McKagan address four areas to improve the teaching of graduate QM
education. One of these areas was the course content and the textbooks that support it, i.e.
textbooks useful to rst year graduate students. First, they identify four main periods in the
development of QM. The rst period covers the formulation of QM and its application to the
models and the material that nowadays appear in undergraduate textbooks, and cover the
years from 1926 to 1936 approximately. The second period runs approximately from the mid-
1930s to the 1950s. The third period begins with the work of Bell and in this period it was
experimentally proved that observables do not have denite values before measurement. The
last period of QM begins with the conuence of QM and information theory in the 1980s and
covers many interesting discoveries like quantum teleportation, the no-cloning theorem, the
decoherence process (which explains the transition from the quantum world to the classical
one), reformulations to the uncertainty principle [50], the use of entanglement to realize non-
classical tasks, etc.
Carr and McKagan [49] analyzed over 50 graduate-level QM textbooks and found that
many commonly used textbooks are out of date because they do not cover all four periods of
QM development. For example, they found that the classical books by Landau and Lifshitz
[51], Sakurai [19], and Schiff [52] are out of date because they just cover the two rst periods.

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Explicitly, they stated that Sakurai has signicant weaknesses, mostly because it is dated
[49]. An additional weakness is that after using Sakurai, students did not conceive of
the possibility of a set of well-dened postulates from which quantum mechanics can be
derived [49], additionally, according to Carr and McKagan, Sakurais book does not give a
full treatment of density operators: the inability to understand density matrices is a serious
problem, which can lead to a lack of understanding of entanglement [49].
In order to carry out a brief textbook analysis, we chose the textbooks that begin the
teaching of QM using the SGE or that study this experiment as an important subject. From
these, we focus on the books of Sakurai [19, 20], Townsend [21], McIntyre [17], and Grifths
[38] as illustrations of the usual way in which this experiment is studied. Due to the com-
plexity of textbook analysis, we adress just the physical approach and mathematical tools
used in these textbooks to analyze the SGE.
From our analysis of the books that use the SGE as a tool to teach fundamental concepts
of QM, the rst astonishing fact that we found is that the books from Sakurai [19, 20],
Townsend [21], and McIntyre [17] do not take into account the effort and proposals made by
many scholars to improve the understanding of the SGE [3337, 42, 43, 45, 47, 5358].
Additionally, we observe that the tools used to model the experiment were semiclassical,
which could produce confusion and contradiction to thoughtful students or readers.
To illustrate the last point of the previous paragraph, let us emphasize that the usual way
of treating the SGE in almost all QM textbooks is to consider the external variables (for
example the trajectory) as classical variables [57]; that is to say almost all of them use a
semiclassical approach. This semiclassical approximation is explicitly stated and highlighted
by Cohen-Tannoudji [59], whereas Sakurai [19, 20] just mentions it in a single sentence and
Townsends book [21] does not mention it at all. However, in the literature there are many
contributions treating the SGE in a complete quantum mechanical form [33, 34, 45, 47,
53, 54, 58], i.e. taking into account that both the internal and external variables are quantum
variables, most of them use the spinor and an initial superposition state for the spin degree of
freedom to analyze the experiment [33, 34].
The semiclassical approach produces a peculiar explanation of the effect of the SGE on
the spin variables. For example in Townsends book [21] it is stated that the atoms that follow
the upper trajectory are in the z state and that in the bottom trajectory are in the z state
when the atoms go through the SGE. This approach comes from both the idea of considering
the SGE as a measurement device and applying the Bohr measurement view where quantum
measurement is modeled by an interaction between a classical apparatus and a quantum
system. Then, to carry out the analysis of the SGE the mathematical tools are not the
postulates of QM, instead what it is used is a classical approach based on Newtons
equation (1). In this approach an atom in state z experiences an upward force and follows
a classical path. Implicitly, this is in contradiction with the fact that observables do not
possess a previous value before a measurement because the usual statement is as follows: ...
the mz > 0 (Sz < 0 ) atom experiences a downward force... The beam is then expected to get
split according to the values of mz , see page 3 of [20]. This statements implicitly considers
that before traversing the SGE the mz possesses a pre-existing denite value. This predicted
behavior is similar to the behavior of a classical electromagnetic eld when it traverses a
beam splitting.
McIntyres book [17] is based on the books by Sakurai [19] and Townsend [21] and
follows the same semiclassical analysis. This book also ignores the contributions and efforts
made by many scholars to address the SGE in a quantum mechanical form [3337, 42, 43,
45, 47, 5358].

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

A better approach is given in the textbook by Grifths [38]. It is based on the analysis
given by Ballentine [53]. In this analysis a reference frame moving with the same velocity of
the particles was chosen and a full quantum mechanical analysis was carried out. They use as
an initial state a superposition state. In this case the real experiment of the SGE, where the
initial state is a random state i.e. given by a density matrix, was not analyzed.
Here we should remark that there had been analyses of the SGE made in a quantum
manner not using semiclassical trajectories, for example in [25], and also, as said above, in
[38]. In Bohms book, [25], the observed outcomes of the experiment are explained through
the entanglement of spin and momentum for the beam. However, in this book there is also
given the usual semiclassical trajectories approach in earlier sections.
Maybe the weak characteristic of the textbooks that we analyzed is that they do not use
the postulates of QM to explain the dynamics of the SGE. This form to carry out the analysis
of this experiment loses the opportunity to develop in the students the paramount skill to use
the fundamental postulates of a discipline to explain the observed phenomena.
Here, an interesting question comes: where does this way of introducing QM come from?
Who was the rst person that pursed the goal of teaching QM with phenomena that could not
be explained in any classical way? It seems that one of the earliest sources is Feynmans
Lectures on Physics. Sakurais textbook [20] does not recognize this as the source of its
presentation of the SGE. On the other hand, Townsend [21] and McIntyre [17] recognize
Feynman as their source.
Feynmans Lectures on Physics is a set of three worldwide famous books that, curiously,
Feynman did not write. What happened is that Feynman gave a series of lectures in the 1960s
which were recorded; this set of books is the transcript of the Feynman lectures. However the
books are not an exact transcription of the Feynman lectures, the lectures where edited to
write the books (this is stated in the preface of the books) and, as result of the editing process,
they present Feynmans ideas in a different order; also the wording is different. For example,
in the lecture about QM Feynman said Because this behavior is so unlike ordinary
experience, its very difcult to get used to and it appears peculiar and mysterious to
everyone, both to the novel and experienced physicist... I, myself, for example, I dont really
understand it. However in the fth paragraph of section 1.1 of the third volume the wording
is Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difcult to get used to,
and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyoneboth to the novel and experienced
physicist. Even the experts do not understand it the way they would like toK.
However, the different order or different wording in the book when compared with what
really Feynman said is not as important as the ideas that have been deleted in the copy editing
process. One such idea that has been cut in the third book casts light on the question: where
did the idea to teach QM with phenomena which are clearly different from the classical world
come from? The cut Feynman idea is:
Well in these lectures I wish to tell you about the mysterious behavior right
away in its most strange form. Its usual in such courses to rst point out
situations where the quantum mechanical behavior could be more or less
understood roughly more or less by classical ideas and gradually build up a
feel for the subject that way. But in fact I believe that the feel which one builds
up in this way is a feeling that with a little more tough out ingenuity the old
ideas would account for everything. This K This erroneous impression
derives from a special selection of phenomena with such a method of
presentation K !ee! K which K This only means that for K the select
phenomena for which classical ideas would be, with a little sleading, of partial

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success. So I choose a phenomenon for which it is impossible, but absolutely

impossible to explain in any classical way and which has the heart of quantum
mechanic in it, and it is the only mystery K.
The audio of Feynmans Lectures on Physics is available in many online places like
Amazon, iBooks Store, in your library, etc. A word of caution is in order here: we strongly
recommend hearing the audio to check that effectively the previous paragraphs reproduce
what Feynman said. Probably there could be a little variation both because Feynman was
talking so quickly or from a mishearing from our part because we are not native English
speakers. Anyway, listening to Feynmans lectures is a delightful experience.
We believe that the last quoted paragraph from the audio of Feynmans Lectures on
Physics and the books themselves are one of the most strong academic inuences that
produce the way of presenting QM that we nd today in the books by Sakurai [20], Townsend
[21], McIntyre [17], and IOPs web page on QM [22].

5. Lack of content knowledge in the teaching of quantum mechanics

The main purpose of this section is to draw attention to an additional problem in the teaching
of QM. We intend to clarify whether teachers command or lack of knowledge of a subject
matter could inuence the learning outcomes of students.
In this regard, let us point out that together with the fact that many physicist do not know
the eld and results of PER, there is the fact that many teachers teaching QM are not
specialists in the area. In Mexico, for example, this subject is taught by specialists in
mathematical physics, specialists in relativity, specialists in optics, specialists in particle
physics, specialists in electronics, etc. This has been possible because there are many tradi-
tions in the teaching of physics that fully took root in the thought of physicists.
Before stating one of these traditions, let us list some of the knowledge that teachers must
possess to effectively teach any branch of physics like QM. We list three approaches that
come from results of PER.
First, what Mestre [3] called strategic instructions requires strong knowledge in the
following three areas: (i) Content: teachers must have sufcient command of the content,
about the core concepts and methodologies of the discipline, (ii) Learning mechanisms and
students thinking: teachers must know the main results of cognitive research about how
people learn, and (iii) Instructional strategies: teachers must know approaches to facilitate the
conceptual understanding students possess and working knowledge about instruction on
problem solving.
Second, Etkina [60] lists the following three branches of knowledge that a teacher must
command to effectively engage students in the learning process of physics: (i) knowledge of
content: teachers have to know the laws of physics and the methods of scientic inquiry, (ii)
general pedagogical knowledge: teachers must know how people learn, how memory oper-
ates, and how the brain develops with age and to be skillful in creating learning environments,
and (iii) pedagogical content knowledge: teachers of a specic subject must acquire special
understanding and abilities that integrate their knowledge of the subject to be taught and the
student learning of this content.
Third, when analyzing the learning problem Reif [12] lists a series of desirable perfor-
mances to deliver the instructional process: (i) relevant knowledge about domain, (ii)
theoretical analysis, and (iii) needed knowledge modications.
For the sake of completeness, we recall the Ball et al [61] list about the teachers needed
knowledge from the science teaching community: (i) general pedagogical knowledge, with

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special reference to those broad principles and strategies of classroom management and
organization that appear to transcend subject matter, (ii) knowledge of learners and their
characteristics, (iii) knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from working of the group or
classroom, the governance and nancing of school districts, to the character of communities
and cultures, (iv) knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philoso-
phical and historical grounds, (v) content knowledge, (vi) curriculum knowledge, with
particular grasp of the materials and programs that serve as tools of the trade for teachers, and
(vii) pedagogical content knowledge, that special amalgam of content and pedagogy that is
uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understanding.
All the above lists consider an excellent and full command of knowledge of the scientic
subject to be taught as one of the three areas that a teacher must master to deliver effective
instruction. Mestre [3] and Etkina [60] are crystal clear about this point, Reif [12] explicitly
stated: If an instructor wants to facilitate the learning of a particular eld of science or
mathematics, an essential prerequisite is a sufciently deep knowledge of this eld and
adequate working experience with it. Ball et al [61] review Shulmans conception about
content knowledge knowing a subject for teaching requires more than knowing its facts and
concepts. Teachers must also understand the organizing principles and structures and the
rules for establishing what is legitimate to do and say in a eld. We will call this prerequisite
to be able to teach the principle.

The principle: in order to be able to teach, teachers must possess a deep knowledge
about the subject matter to be taught.
It stands to reason that the principle is the initial state for teachers if the main goal is
that students learn and understand the main concepts, models, and theories of a scientic
discipline.
However, the principle is in contrast with a common feeling held by some physicist
around the world. This tradition states that if you do not know a subject matter but you want
to know it, you should teach it. We will call it the tradition.

The tradition: if you do not know a branch of physics but want to know such branch of
physics, you should teach it.
Notice that the main goal of the tradition is the learning of teachers, not of students.
The contrast between the principle and the tradition as a starting point for teaching
is quite strong and probably they produce different levels of learning and understanding from
students.
It is quite probable that teachers using the tradition do not possess any scientic
evidence about its effectiveness but it is still common. One of the most famous physicists that
advocate such kind of teaching strategy is the 1979 Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg who in
the preface of his book titled To Explain the World [62] stated: As is natural for an aca-
demic, when I want to learn about something, I volunteer to teach a course on the subject.
What kind of strategy and resources does a teacher use in the tradition? It seems that
the rst strategy is to take a book on the subject and to teach using this book as the main
source of information, content syllabus, source for homework, etc. In fact, this is the strategy
that is used by teachers that do not have a full command of the subject matter they are
teaching [63]. That is, they rely heavily on textbooks [63]. For example, when teaching the
SGE they strongly rely on the semiclassical approach given in almost all textbooks of QM,

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

especially Sakurais [19, 20] and Townsends [21] textbooks where this experiment is ana-
lyzed using Newtons second law.
Is there any empirical evidence regarding the effects of the the tradition on teaching
and learning? In fact there is, given that this tradition highly inuences both teaching and
learning. Since the 1980s there have been empirical studies that undertook the goal to elu-
cidate the inuence that teachers content knowledge (CK) has on both the teaching process
and on students learning. For example, the evidence suggests that during the teaching
process weak knowledge of subject matter inuences the choice of material and resources
used for teaching and in the learning process the evidence suggests that students replicate the
misconceptions that teachers possess.
Part of these works use the approach and concepts developed by Shulmans team [64].
The main concept introduced by Shulman is pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a new
dimension to cover all abilities (additional to a command of CK) needed to effectively teach a
subject matter. These studies mainly tend to discern how CK inuences PCK.
One of the rst ndings was that the CK of teachers affects the content and instruction
process [64]. In an experimental study, Hashweh [63] found out that two teachers with weak
knowledge in physics (low CK) heavily stuck to the textbooks structure (the PCK was stuck
to the textbook) [63]. Additionally, Hashweh found that there were additions and deletions of
concepts based on the CK that teachers had [63].
On the other hand, Magnusson et al [65] found experimental evidence of a relationship
between CK and students learning achievement, but this relationship only appears in the event
of incorrect teacher knowledge. For example, they found that all the teachers in their study
that exhibited the misconception that temperature measures heat energy had students whose
understanding of temperature was less correct at the end of the instruction than at the
beginning [65]. Also, they found that students who developed the greatest decrease in
accurate knowledge on heat energy, were the ones taught by the teacher whose CK of head
energy was less accurate.
In another study between 28 preservice science teachers, zden [66] found that CK has
an effect on PCK. In particular, he found that CK had a positive inuence on PCK and
effective teaching.
As another example of the inuence of subject matter knowledge, Even [67] investigates
the consequences on students learning of the concept of function when teachers lack a
modern understanding of a concept. Specically, he studies the lack of knowledge of the
univalence and arbitrarieness of preservice teachers. He found that many of these teachers
present students with procedural knowledge instead of using the modern concept of function
to understand what it is possible to do with functions that is not possible with relations that are
not functions, i.e. teachers lack of knowledge inuences the PCK.
Finally, in a case study, Lee [68] examined how teachers CK, classroom management,
and instructional practices inuence each other. He found that a weak CK of the teacher
heavily inuences the instructional activities (the PCK) by mainly focusing on textbook
activities.
On the other hand, this seems to be the strategy followed by specialists in a branch of
physics when faced with the task of teaching in a different branch of physics where they are
not specialists; that is to say they heavily rely on textbooks. This has happened in our country
with QM; for example when faced with the task of teaching QM, a specialist in mathematical
physics takes a book as his main source.
The majority of research in the PER area takes for granted that teachers have a strong
command of knowledge when teaching a given subject area. To the best of our knowledge,
there are no studies in the PER area that focus on research about the consequences on student

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learning produced by teachers deciencies in knowledge. The main goal of many studies is
to show results indicating that given two different approaches for teaching, traditional teacher
lecturing versus PER active engagement, the latter produces better results independent of
teachers; see for example the recent results by Deslauriers et al [11]. Other results indicate
that given the same approach for teaching, i.e. conventional physics instruction [69], unsa-
tisfactory outcomes are the same independent of teachers, i.e. independent of the instructor
[69]. Below we shown preliminary results that suggest that differences in the CK of teachers
could produce different outcomes for learning. In short, we hypothesize that teachers using
the the tradition could produce different results than teachers working with the the
principle.
In our country there is a tradition followed by specialists whose area of specialization is
not in QM, i.e. their main area of research is not QM and they come from a particular
university (for ethical concerns we omit the name of the speciality and the university), that
they work with the tradition. In this case, the tradition (with the fact that their main
research area is not QM) is that they believe that the best book to teach an introductory QM
course is Sakurais textbook [19, 20], despite the fact that this book clearly states in its preface
that it is a book for a graduate QM course.
Below we show preliminary results from a study at the Facultad de Ciencias Fsico
Matemticas (FCFM) of the Benmerita Universidad Autnoma de Puebla. We do not give a
complete analysis of the collected data because the investigation is ongoing and in the current
phase we are given an introductory course using results from PER. For two years we have
applied a combination of three tests, one by Zhu and Singh [23] one by Singh [70], and the
other by Carr and McKagan [49]; and some free questions that we have developed to test
contemporary concepts of QM, like, for example, teleportation, the no-cloning theorem, the
entropic uncertainty relations, etc. Additionally, we conducted personal interviews with ve
students to look deeper into their answers. These test were checked with the appropriate
standards for this type of test. The questions that we add to the test have the purpose of
uncovering common misconceptions held by students. These questions are in the initial phase
of the building of the test.
The tests were applied to students enrolled on a Masters degree program at the FCFM in
autumn 2015 (seven students) and autumn 2016 (nine students). The majority of students
came from the undergraduate physics degree at FCFM and some came from universities of
other states. Many students had took more than one QM course, some were enrolled in two
undergraduate QM courses. The tests were administered at the beginning of the graduate QM
course and had no value in the nal score. Additionally, during the course we had the
opportunity to ask questions of the whole group; for example we repeatedly inquired about
the SGE.
The majority of students that took the test in autumn 2015 used Sakurais textbook [19]
in the introductory QM course (six students, 85%, used Sakurais textbook in the intro-
ductory course), some others used Landaus textbook [51]. The majority of students that took
the test in autumn 2016 used Sakurais [19] (ve of nine students) and Grifths [38] text-
books in their introductory QM course. All of these courses were taught with the traditional
transmission model for teaching [3]. All students (100%) were enrolled on courses where the
teacher had research activities outside QM, like particle physics, mathematical physics,
cosmology, relativity, etc. One of these teachers does not carry out any research activities and
the textbook that he used in the introductory QM course was the Landau textbook [51].
Here, from the test results, we briey focus only on the following ve questions, some of
the results conrm previously reported outcomes.

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Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Figure 2. Response of one student given in the initial test.

1. How is Schrdinger equation solved? That is, what are the steps to solve it.
7. What is the mathematical meaning of dP in the Heisenberg uncertainty relation
dXdP? What kind of problems does this uncertainty relation have? What is the
reformulation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation in terms of Shannon entropy? What
is Shannon entropy?
8. What is an entangled state? Give an example of two-particle and three-particle
entangled states based on direct products.
11. Dene the density matrix. What are its zero and innite temperature limits? Dene
entropy in the density matrix formalism.
19. Explain the SternGerlach experiment. That is, how the experiment works, what are
the main approximations, what are the relevant mathematical tools to analyze it, etc.
The numbers in this list correspond to the numbers on the test. In autumn 2016 question 7
was changed to two questions. (i) What is the mathematical meaning of dA in the Heisenberg
uncertainty relation dA dB? Where A and B are observables, complete the mathematical
equation for this uncertainty relation. What kind of problems does this uncertainty relation
have? (ii) Explain what is the reformulation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation in terms of
Shannon entropy and why it was necessary? Not all the questions of the test were related to
factual knowledge, question one was about a procedure and some included questions are the
same as question numbers 1 and 2 of the test by Zhu and Singh [23] and question number 2
from the test that appears in [70].
Responses, in both tests 2015 and 2016, for question one suggest that students who nish
the undergraduate courses do not fully command the process to solve the Schdinger equation
(no one could give a correct answer to this question). This is congruent with the ndings of
Singh, who found that students believe that the most important equation of QM is the time
independent Scrdinger equation (TISE) and this belief probably originates from the textbook
approach of heavily focusing on the TISE.
When asking about the uncertainty principle, most students (100%) did not know the
mathematical meaning of dA and showed the usual interpretation coming in textbooks and
popular magazines where it is stated that the uncertainty principle given by the standard
deviation refers to the perturbation of one variable when measuring the other. All students in
both years did not answer the question about the entropic uncertainty relation (EUR). In the
interview, all of them admitted not knowing the EUR or the meaning of Shanon entropy
(100% of students in both years had not heard about Shannon entropy). It seems that this

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occurs because these concepts are not treated in the chosen textbooks and the teachers
themselves do not know these concepts.
All the students in both years (100%) did not have a clear understanding of entangled
states. In the interview they admitted that in the attended undergraduate courses of QM this
concept was not treated.
Also, the answers given to question 11 show that students do not know the concept of a
density operator. This nding coincides with the ndings of Carr and McKagan [49]. These
authors found out after teaching with Sakurais textbook students lack a deeper under-
standing of density matrices [49]. Just one student in both years showed an accurate
understanding of this concept.
We also inquired, with the whole class, about the SGE and not surprisingly we found that
almost all students in both years only knew the traditional semiclassical textbook explanation
of the dynamics involved in the experiment (two students stated that they did not even know
the SGE). Also, no one knew that the SGE was set out to discriminate between the Debye
Sommerfeld space quantization and the classical prediction [29, 30]. In gure 2 we show the
diagram given in the response to question 19 given by one student. This gure shows the
main features of the semiclassical explanation for this experiment. When asked, students did
not know how to apply the fundamental postulates of QM to analyze the SGE experiment.
Finally, from the interview it follows that students lack knowledge of basic quantum
mechanical concepts and processes like the different meanings of the uncertainty principle,
the quantum mechanical treatment of SGE, entangled states, quantum teleportation, the
quantum no-cloning theorem, etc. All students (100%) believed that QM only applies to
microscopic systems.
All the previous evidence, i.e. the insight of Mestre [3], Redish [5], Reif [12], and Etkina
[60], the empirical evidence by Hashweh [63], Magnusson et al [65], zden [66], and Lee
[68] together with our empirical ndings, suggests that the CK of teachers strongly affects the
content that students learn.
As a main conclusion of this section, it could be argued that the evidence given above
suggests that there exists a specialized content knowledge that teachers only develop as a
result of engagement in scientic research on a subject matter, for example the specialized
content knowledge coming from doing research on QM. This specialized content knowledge
gives the teacher strong support to understand the subtleties and nuances of the main concepts
and ways of treating the more relevant models in QM (for example the SGE or the uncertainty
principle to name but two). This understanding is not developed only by just listening and
reading textbooks. It also suggests that the specialized content knowledge in a specic subject
area does not give expertise or competence in teaching a different subject area. For example,
when the teachers that teach QM are not involved in research in the QM area (i.e., they are
doing research in a different area) they rely on textbooks as a source of content, homework,
and tests. Also it causes students to be exposed to content that is out of date and the new
developed concepts (such as quantum teleportation, for example) are not treated in the course.

6. Conclusions

The research and teaching activities are overwhelmingly intermingled and entangled in such a
way that research feeds teaching and teaching feeds research [71]. One of these activities
could not ourish without the other [71]: Because the results of research feed into teaching,
and because the information and experience gained in teaching can often result in an input to
research, it is difcult to dene where the education and training activities of higher

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education staff and their students end and R&D activities begin, and vice versa, see page 67
of [71].
Generally, the PER eld intents to be an experimental eld. However, physics has also
evolved by theoretical development; i.e. a scientic discipline can evolve only by the gui-
dance of both theory and experiment and, as is well known from philosophy of science,
experiments are theory-laden. Or as Einstein said It is the theory which decides what can be
observed. In others words, PER also has a component of theory that sometimes is not taken
into account.
In this paper we have analytically shown that the SGE produces entanglement between
the internal and external degrees of freedom, i.e. subsystems [72, 73]. We solved in a simple
way the original SGE where the initial state is given by a non-pure state and the case where
the initial state is pure.
We argue that the tradition it is not a good initial state for teachers because the main
goal of this tradition is the learning of teachers and because this tradition considers teaching
and research as unrelated activities, i.e. it falls short of the expectation to supply students
sound background in the subject matter.
Also, we argue that textbooks that use the SGE as a starting point to teach QM do not
take into account the effort of many researchers across the world to improve understanding of
the SGE dynamics.
The analysis given in this paper shows that in order to be able to understand the SGE a
student needs as initial knowledge:
(i) an understanding of the concept of a density operator;
(ii) an understanding of the postulates of QM;
(iii) an understanding of the evolution operator method and its factorization.
Without understanding the concept of density operators it is impossible to represent the
initial state of the atoms that come from the oven, i.e. to represent the original experiment.
Without an understanding of the postulates of QM, a student could not develop the ability to
explain quantum phenomena. Without an understanding of the factorization method a student
will be unable to solve the main model to explain the SGE.
Therefore, the results of this paper show that the idea of starting an introductory course
on QM with the study of the SGE is not as good as it seems to be at rst sight. First, students
must know and understand the fundamental concepts and postulates of QM.

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by Vicerrectora de Investigacin y Estudios de Posgrado (VIEP),

Benemrita Universidad Autnoma de Puebla, through the project titled Anlisis cuntico
del experimento de SternGerlach. We greatly appreciate the suggestions from the two
anonymous referees. E Bentez Rodrguez and E Piceno Martnez thank CONACYT for
Master degree Fellowship support. L M Arvalo Aguilar thanks Sistema Nacional de
Investigadores. We thank Alba Julita Chiyopa Robledo for helping us with the wording of the
manuscript.Note added. When this paper was accepted, we became aware of a recent paper by
Devereux treating the SGE [74]. However this author reaches a different conclusion than
ours. Also we became aware of a recent paper by Freeman et al [75]. These authors made a
meta-analysis to compare student learning in undergraduate science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) courses under traditional lecturing versus active learning. From this

20
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

analysis, these authors reached the conclusion that active learning produces better results than
traditional lecturing.

Appendix

b
A.1. Factorization of the evolution operator U

In this appendix we show the steps required to factorize the evolution operator for one to be
able to apply it to an initial wave function. For a review of the method followed to carry out
these steps please see [31, 32].
We want to factorize el (A + B ) of the form
el (A + B) = e f0 (l ) e f1 (l ) Be f2 (l ) C e f3 (l ) A.

(A.1)
-it 2 -itmc
If we identify A = 2m pz and B = (B0 + bz ) sz , then A and B satisfy the following

commutation relations:
[A , B ] = C , [A , C ] = 0, [C , B ] = - k , (A.2)
it 3m2c b 2
where C = - ( it 2mc b
m )p s and k = -
z z m
.
We can write F (l ) = el (A + B ), then
dF ( l )
= (A + B ) F (l)
dl
df ( l ) df ( l ) df ( l )
= 0 F (l) + B 1 F (l) + 2 [C + f1 (l) k] F (l)
dl dl dl
df ( l ) f 2 (l )
+ 3 A - f1 (l) C - 1 k F (l ) . (A.3)
dl 2
Thus, we obtain a system of differential equations,
df1 (l)
= 1, (A.4)
dl
df3 (l)
= 1, (A.5)
dl
df2 df (l)
- 3 f (l) = 0, (A.6)
dl dl 1

df0 (l) df (l) df (l) f12 (l)

+ 2 f1 (l) k - 3 k = 0, (A.7)
dl dl dl 2
whose solutions are
l3
f0 (l) = - k, (A.8)
6
f1 (l) = f3 (l) = l, (A.9)

l2
f2 = , (A.10)
2
where the condition f1 (0) = f2 (0) = f3 (0) = 0 [31, 32] is fullled.

21
Eur. J. Phys. 38 (2017) 025403 E Bentez Rodrguez et al

Therefore:
l3 l2
el (A + B) = e- 6 k elBe 2 C elA,

(A.11)

choosing l = 1 we arrive to the wanted factorization.

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