Operators Dirac

The appropriate quantum mechanical operator fomi of the phase has been the subject of numerous efforts. At present, one can only speak of the best approximate operator, and this also is the subject of debate. A personal historical account by Nieto of various operator definitions for the phase (and of its probability distribution) is in [27] and in companion articles, for example, [130-132] and others, that have appeared in Volume 48 of Physica Scripta T (1993), which is devoted to this subject. (For an introduction to the unitarity requirements placed on a phase operator, one can refer to [133]). In 1927, Dirac proposed a quantum mechanical operator tf), defined in terms of the creation and destruction operators [134], but London [135] showed that this is not Hermitean. (A further source is [136].) Another candidate, e is not unitary. 

The notation < i j k 1> introduced above gives the two-electron integrals for the g(r,r ) operator in the so-called Dirac notation, in which the i and k indices label the spin-orbitals that refer to the coordinates r and the j and 1 indices label the spin-orbitals referring to coordinates r. The r and r denote r,0,( ),a and r, 0, ( ), a (with a and a being the a or P spin functions). The fact that r and r are integrated and hence represent dummy variables introduces index permutational symmetry into this list of integrals. For example,... 

The Schrodinger equation and the Klein-Gordon equation both involve second order partial derivatives, and to recover such an equation from the Dirac equation we can operate on equation 18.12 with the operator... 

A fully relativistic treatment of more than one particle has not yet been developed. For many particle systems it is assumed that each electron can be described by a Dirac operator (ca ir + p mc ) and the many-electron operator is a sum of such terms, in analogy with the kinetic energy in non-relativistic theory. Furthermore, potential energy operators are added to form a total operator equivalent to the Hamilton operator in non-relativistic theory. Since this approach gives results which agree with experiments, the assumptions appear justified. 

The Dirac operator incorporates relativistic effects for the kinetic energy. In order to describe atomic and molecular systems, the potential energy operator must also be modified. In non-relativistic theory the potential energy is given by the Coulomb operator. 

Note that the subscript on the a matrices refers to the particle, and a here includes all of the tlx, tty and components in eq. (8.4). The first correction term in the square brackets is called the Gaunt interaction, and the whole term in the square brackets is the Breit interaction. The Dirac matiices appear since they represent the velocity operators in a relativistic description. The Gaunt term is a magnetic interaction (spin) while the other term represents a retardation effect. Eq. (8.27) is more often written in the form... 

When is a one component scalar function, one can take the square root of Eq. (9-237) and one thus obtains the relativistic equation describing a spin 0 particle discussed in Section 9.4. This procedure, however, does not work for a spin particle since we know that in the present situation the amplitude must be a multicomponent object, because in the nonrelativistic limit the amplitude must go over into the 2-component nonrelativistic wave function describing a spin particle. Dirac, therefore, argued that the square root operator in the present case must involve something operating on these components. 

Since H is to be an operator that acts upon the components of xjt, Dirac wrote... 

The isomorphism between the tilde operation and hermitian conjugation, implies that upon performing this -operation on the Dirac equation we find that [Pg.524]

In the Dirac representation, the position operator has the following representation... 

In formulating the second-quantized description of a system of noninteracting fermions, we shall, therefore, have to introduce distinct creation and annihilation operators for particle and antiparticle. Furthermore, since all the fermions that have been discovered thus far obey the Pauli Exclusion principle we shall have to make sure that the formalism describes a many particle system in terms of properly antisymmetrized amplitudes so that the particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. For definiteness, we shall in the present section consider only the negaton-positon system, and call the negaton the particle and the positon the antiparticle. 

The commutations (9-416)-( 9-419) guarantee that the state vectors are antisymmetric and that the occupation number operators N (p,s) and N+(q,t) can have only eigenvalues 0 and 1 (which is, of course, what is meant by the statement that particles and antiparticles separately obey Fermi-Dirac etatistios). In fact one readily verifies that... 

The Dirac Equation in a Central Field.—The previous sections have indicated that at times it is useful to have an explicit representation of the matrix element <0 (a ) n> where tfi(x) is the Heisenberg operator satisfying Eq. (10-1). Of particular interest is the case when the external field A (x) is time-independent, Ae = Ae(x), so that the states > can be assumed to be eigenstates of the then... 

Antilinear operator, antiunitary, 688 Antiunitary operators, 727 A-operation, 524 upon Dirac equation, 524 Approximation, 87 methods, successive minimax (Chebyshev), 96 problem of, 52 Arc, 258... 

Ponderomotive force, 382 Position operator, 492 in Dirac representation, 537 in Foldy-Wouthuysen representation, 537 spectrum of, 492 Power, average, 100 Power density spectrum, 183 Prather, J. L., 768 Predictability, 100 Pressure tensor, 21 Probabilities addition of, 267 conditional, 267 Probability, 106... 

The electron-electron exchange term, Hex In equation (16) it is necessary to consider only He . As has been discussed, the energy difference between T and S states is equal to Je . With a minimal overlap integral due to a relatively large inter-radical separation. Hex can be given by the Dirac exchange operator [equation (18)],... 

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