Electron Clebsch-Gordon coefficients

Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 1K views
Mastern00b
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Homework Statement
The state of an electron is,

|Psi> =a|l =2, m=0> ⊗ |up> + Psi =a|l =2, m=1> ⊗ |down>,

a and b are constants with |a|2 + |b|2 = 1
choose a and b such that |Psi> is an eigenstate of the following operators: L2, S2, J2 and Jz.
The attempt at a solution

I am really not sure where to start on this, i have tried reading through previous threads on the coefficients and i am still confused.

For a start does the statement above mean that the wavefunction describes both a spin up and spin down arrangement, both of which are possible at any time? And do i need to treat this as two particles, one spin up and one spin down?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Anyone got any ideas that could help?
 
It simply means that your electron is in a superposition between two states, one which has orbital angular momentum 2 with orbital angular momentum z-component 0 and spin up and another which has orbital angular momentum 2, orbital angular momentum z-component 1, and spin down. Your task is to adjust the linear combination such that the resulting state is an eigenstate of the list of operators.

As a first step, do you know how these operators act on this state?