Monday, January 12, 2015

quantum mechanics - Spatial Translation Commutation with Position Operator in QM


The following is a section from Sakurai's book "Modern Quantum mechanics" where he explains the translation operator J commutation with position operator ˆx on the subspace |x:



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On the next page he then states "By choosing dx in the direction of ˆxj and forming the scalar product with ˆxi, we obtain [xi,Kj]=iδij"

Can anyone see the working that yields that equation?


Thanks for any assistance



Answer



The equation ix(Kdx)+i(Kdx)x=dx written in components is: j(ixiKkdxk+iKkdxkxi)=dxi.

Now, setting dxk=δkj, we get ixiKj+iKjxi=δij.


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