Dirac Notation and Magnitude of Bra's Help

  • #1
NeedPhysHelp8
41
0
Hi all,

I was diving into my 3rd year quantum assignment and I saw the following which I have to use for the rest of the question to prove the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality:

Homework Statement



[tex] || a|x> + b|y> ||^2 [/tex]

I only really learned a bit about Dirac notation last year, so please let me know if this simplification is right.

[tex] ( a|x> + b|y> )^{*}( a|x> + b|y> ) [/tex]
[tex] a^{*}a<x|x> + a^{*}b<x|y> + b^{*}a<y|x> + b^{*}b<y|y> [/tex]

Later it says to make substitutions for [tex] a= -<x|y> , b= <x|x> [/tex] to prove the inequality, but I want to make sure I didn't screw up the very first part above...which I have a feeling I did.
Thanks
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
The multiplications with bra's and kets are correctly done.
 
Back
Top