Tagged Questions

6
votes
2answers
175 views

Coherent $U(N)$ intertwiners in Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) and a measure on the Grassmannian

This is a detailed question about $U(N)$ intertwiners in LQG, and it comes from the the paper by Freidel and Livine (2011 - archive). It is very specific but related to finding a measure on a quotient ...
5
votes
3answers
220 views

What is a dual / cotangent space?

Dual spaces are home to bras in quantum mechanics; cotangent spaces are home to linear maps in the tensor formalism of general relativity. After taking courses in these two subjects, I've still never ...
1
vote
1answer
54 views

Can I prove boundedness of an operator without checking it for its whole domain?

(I don't have a direct reference so this is a little fishy and I'll delete it if nobody recognises what I'm talking about, but I though for starters I'll ask anyway) I've heard at university that if ...
12
votes
1answer
372 views

Intuitive meaning of Hilbert Space formalism

I am totally confused about the Hilbert Space formalism of Quantum Mechanics. Can somebody please elaborate on the following points: The observables are given by self-adjoint operators on the ...
3
votes
3answers
160 views

Banach Space representations of physical systems

I think most physicists mostly model physical systems as some kind of Hilbert space. Hilbert spaces are a strict subset of Banach spaces. Questions: Can physical systems really have non-compact ...
5
votes
3answers
251 views

Takhatajan's mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics

So I began skimming L. Takhatajan's Quantum Mechanics For Mathematicians, and saw the mathematical formulation of QM that he uses (page 51). (The PDF file is available here.) I've only taken a basic ...
3
votes
3answers
306 views

Why we use $L_2$ Space In QM?

I asked this question for many people/professors without getting a sufficient answer, why in QM Lebesgue spaces of second degree are assumed to be the one that corresponds to the Hilbert vector space ...
3
votes
3answers
354 views

Can we have discontinuous wavefunctions in the Infinite Square well?

The energy eigenstates of the infinite square well problem look like the Fourier basis of L2 on the interval of the well. So then we should be able to for example make square waves that are an ...
2
votes
3answers
250 views

If I go to the church of the greater Hilbert space, can I have Unitary Collapse?

Actually, unitary pseudo-collapse? Von Neuman said quantum mechanics proceeds by two processes: unitary evolution and nonunitary reduction, also now called projection, collapse and splitting. ...
3
votes
1answer
314 views

Quantum mechanic newbie: why complex amplitudes, why Hilbert space?

I'm just starting learning quantum mechanics by myself (2 "lectures" so far) and I was wondering why we need to define quantum states in a complex vector space rater than a real one? Also I was ...
3
votes
3answers
376 views

Existence of creation and annihilation operators

In a multiple particle Hilbert space (any space of any multi-particle system), is it sufficient to define creation and annihilation operators by their action (e.g. mapping an n-particle state to an ...
8
votes
2answers
953 views

Proof that the One-Dimensional Simple Harmonic Oscillator is Non-Degenerate?

The standard treatment of the one-dimensional quantum simple harmonic oscillator (SHO) using the raising and lowering operators arrives at the countable basis of eigenstates $\{\vert n \rangle\}_{n = ...
1
vote
1answer
302 views

Bra space and adjoint vectors

If I'm not wrong, a bra, $ \langle \phi_n | $, can be thought as a linear functional that when applied to a ket vector, $| \phi_m \rangle$, returns a complex number; that is, the inner product it's a ...
2
votes
2answers
319 views

What is the Hilbert space of a single electron?

Is it the same as the space of all possible descriptions of a single electron? If not, how do they differ? Please give the mathematical name or specification of this space or these spaces.
30
votes
2answers
213 views

Physical interpretation of different selfadjoint extensions

Given a symmetric (densely defined) operator in a Hilbert space, there might be quite a lot of selfadjoint extensions to it. This might be the case for a Schrödinger operator with a "bad" potential. ...
5
votes
3answers
484 views

What is a basis for the Hilbert space of a 1-D scattering state?

Suppose I have a massive particle in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Its wavefunction can be written in the position basis as $$\vert \Psi \rangle = \Psi_x(x,t)$$ or in the momentum basis as ...
10
votes
2answers
889 views

Applications of the Spectral Theorem to Quantum Mechanics

I'm currently learning some basic functional analysis. Yesterday I arrived at the spectral theorem of self-adjoint operators. I've heard that this theorem has lots of applications in Quantum ...