Tuesday, January 19, 2016

quantum field theory - Derivation of total momentum operator QFT


The expansion of the Klein Gordon field and conjugate momentum field are


ˆϕ(x)=d3k(2π)312Ek(ˆak+ˆak)eikx



and


\hat{\pi}(x) = \int \frac{d^3k}{(2 \pi)^3} \, \sqrt{\frac{E_{k}}{2}} \left( \hat{a}_{k} - \hat{a}^{\dagger}_{-k} \right) e^{i k \cdot x}


The total momentum in the classical field is given by


P^{i} = -\int d^3x \, \pi(x) \, \partial_{i} \phi(x)


which is promoted to an operator


\hat{P}^{i} = -\int d^3x \, \hat{\pi}(x) \, \partial_{i} \hat{\phi}(x)


We are told that putting the expansion into this should give


\int \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi)^3} \, p^i \left( \hat{a}_{p}^{\dagger} \hat{a}_{p} + \frac12 (2\pi)^3 \delta^{(3)}(0) \right)


which I do get, however I also get terms involving \hat{a}_{p}\hat{a}_{-p} and \hat{a}^{\dagger}_{p} \hat{a}^{\dagger}_{-p}. How in the world can these terms possibly go away? Have a made a mistake in the math (I am prone to mistakes at the moment.. quite tired) or is there some way that those terms cancel?



Answer




The two integrands p^i\hat{a}_{{\bf p}}\hat{a}_{-{\bf p}} and p^i\hat{a}^{\dagger}_{{\bf p}}\hat{a}^{\dagger}_{-{\bf p}} are antisymmetric wrt. {\bf p} \leftrightarrow -{\bf p}. Hence the corresponding integrals \int d^3p(\ldots ) are zero.


No comments:

Post a Comment

classical mechanics - Moment of a force about a given axis (Torque) - Scalar or vectorial?

I am studying Statics and saw that: The moment of a force about a given axis (or Torque) is defined by the equation: $M_X = (\vec r \times \...