View Full Version : Quantum Mechanics Help
1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data
I am working through past paper questions because i am finding the quantum mechanics module im taking very hard. I dont know how to go about this question:
http://i34.tinypic.com/2j4bpmc.jpg
Any help would be very welcome.
What entries does \left \langle i \left|\hat{H}\right \left| j \rangle refrer to?
latentcorpse
Oct30-09, 09:01 AM
well if i=v_e and j=v_u then i reckon your meant to compute the matrix element
<v_e | \hat{H} | v_\mu >
multiply out those matrices in your first post to get v_e,v_\mu in terms of v1 and v2 and then see what you get...
\left|v_{e}\right\rangle=\left|v_{1}\right\rangle cos \varphi + \left|v_{2}\right\rangle sin \varphi for i
\left|v_{\mu}\right\rangle=\left|v_{2}\right\rangl e cos \varphi - \left|v_{1}\right\rangle sin \varphi for j
Still cant see how i get to <v_e|\hat{H}|v_{\mu}>
Not that i know what <v_e|\hat{H}|v_{\mu}> is or should look like...
latentcorpse
Oct30-09, 11:13 AM
well you can write this as
\left( \cos{\varphi} < v_1 | + \sin{\varphi} < v_2 | \right) \hat{H} \left(\cos{\varphi} | v_2 > - \sin{\varphi} | v_1 > \right)
see what happens after you apply the Hamiltonian on the second bracket
also, you do know what <i|\hat{H}|j> is - it is the ij^{th} entry in this matrix. as for what it looks like, well, that's going to be the answer to the quesiton.
\left( \cos{\varphi} < v_1 | + \sin{\varphi} < v_2 | \right) \left(\cos{\varphi}\hat{H} | v_2 > - \sin{\varphi} \hat{H}| v_1 > \right)
=
\left( \cos{\varphi} < v_1 | + \sin{\varphi} < v_2 | \right) \left(\cos{\varphi}\ E_{2} | v_2 > - \sin{\varphi} \ E_{1}| v_1 > \right)
before i continue, is this right?
latentcorpse
Oct30-09, 12:28 PM
looks fine.
now use orthogonality of the v_i when you multiply out the brackets.
now use orthogonality of the v_i when you multiply out the brackets.
IE. The fact that <v_a|v_b> is the inner product of states v_a and v_b and that v_1 and v_2 are orthogonal.
=
E_{2} cos{\varphi}^{2} < v_1 |v_2 > - E_{1} cos{\varphi}sin{\varphi} < v_1 |v_1 > + E_{2} cos{\varphi}sin{\varphi} < v_2 |v_2 > - E_{1} sin{\varphi}^{2} < v_2 |v_1 >
=
E_{2} sin{\varphi}cos{\varphi} - E_{1} sin{\varphi}cos{\varphi}
Is this right? I still need to get to a matrix somehow...
latentcorpse
Oct30-09, 06:06 PM
ok so, i think i probably could have explained myself better earlier but nonetheless....
ok so this entry we have (E_2-E_1) \sin{\varphi} \cos{\varphi}
so you're trying to get this matrix H where the entries in H are given by <i|\hat{H}|j> and i,j \in \{ v_e , v_\mu \}
H will look something like this
\left[ \begin {array}{cc} \left[ \begin {array}{ccc} < v_{{e}}& | \hat{H} |&v_{{e
}} > \end {array} \right] & \left[ \begin {array}{ccc} < v_{{e}}& | \hat{H} | &v_{{\mu}} >
\end {array} \right] \\ \noalign{\medskip} \left[ \begin {array}{ccc}
< v_{{\mu}}& | \hat{H} | &v_{{e}} > \end {array} \right] & \left[ \begin {array}{ccc} < v_{
{\mu}}& | \hat{H} | & v_{{\mu}} > \end {array} \right] \end {array} \right]
so we have computed the entry that goes in the first row,2nd column
3 similar calculations will give you the other entries though.
Finally got there! Thanks for your help!
http://i37.tinypic.com/25qal3k.gif
...continuing from the same question, here is the next bit which i have tried but cannot do:
http://i36.tinypic.com/21bw3k6.jpg
i think i should be looking at
\left|v_{e}\right\rangle=\left|v_{1}\right\rangle cos \varphi + \left|v_{2}\right\rangle sin \varphi
\left|v_{\mu}\right\rangle=\left|v_{2}\right\rangl e cos \varphi - \left|v_{1}\right\rangle sin \varphi
and i can kind of see that if you translate the
\varphi
by \pi /2 then
\left|v_{e}\right\rangle becomes
\left|v_{\mu}\right\rangle
Is this the explanation?
any ideas? im really stuck...
latentcorpse
Nov1-09, 06:28 AM
what's JPARC and T2K?
Its a place in Japan where they are experimenting with neutrinos, i think its irrelevant to the question.
JPARC is the accelerator and T2K is the experiment name.
any ideas on how to go about answering this?
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