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Let us consider angular momentum operator $\hat{J}_x, \hat{J}_y, \hat{J}_z$ acting on an irreducible representation of angular momentum $j$. Let us denote by $\left|j, m\right\rangle_z$, resp. $\left|j, m\right\rangle_x$ the eigenvectors of $\hat{J}_z$, resp. $\hat{J}_x$.

I'm interested in understanding the spectrum of the matrix $\left(A_{mm'}\right)_{-j \leq m, m' \leq j}$ defined by:

$$A_{mm'} := \left|{}_z\left\langle j, m'|j, m\right\rangle_x\right|^2 = \left|{}_z\left\langle j, m'\right|e^{-i\frac{\pi}{2}\hat{J}_y}\left|j, m\right\rangle_z\right|^2 = {}_z\left\langle j, m'|j, m\right\rangle_x^2$$

Note that contrary to what the (simplified) title suggests, this is not exactly "the basis change matrix" between the $x$ and $z$ eigenbases due to the square. $A$ can be written in terms of the Wigner D matrix and from this observation be further expressed as a Clebsch-Gordan decomposition. These results are stated there for instance.

I'd now like to say something about the eigenvalues of $A$. Obviously, $1$ is such an eigenvalue (all-$1$ eigenvector). Besides, I conjecture from numerics that all other eigenvalues are smaller than $\frac{1}{2}$ in absolute value; more precisely, that the second largest eigenvalue is $-\frac{1}{2}$. Any idea how I could prove these conjectures or anything weaker?

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  • $\begingroup$ No ideas. Indeed, squaring the elements of the orthogonal matrices $d^j_{m~m'}(\pi/2)$ is the way to explore the numerics. Note for j=3/2 the eigenvalues 1 and -1/2 persist, but the kernel has increased to two null vectors... As j increases the rank of A decreases dramatically. You claim you've found different eigenvalues for j=2? $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 16:45
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    $\begingroup$ Hi @CosmasZachos, for j = 2, 0.375 is another eigenvalue and for j = 3, you also get 0.3125. As for the kernel, I can conjecture it has dimension j for integer j. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 16:58
  • $\begingroup$ ...and j+1/2 for half-integer spins. This is plausible from the bisymmetric structure... $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 22:20
  • $\begingroup$ Your A is a bisymmetric matrix. You might ask in MSE about those... They have really special properties... $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 22:33
  • $\begingroup$ Actually the structure is better than bisymmetric. There is symmetry across the perpendicular and horizontal that go trough the center. That readily displays the expanding kernel. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 23:58

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So a little tinkering shows the eigenvalues are given by the sequence $$ \lambda_n=\left\{\begin{array}{ll}\frac{(-1)^n}{4^n} {{2n}\choose{n}}&\qquad n=0,1,\ldots,k, \\ 0& \qquad n> k\, ,\end{array}\right.\tag{1} $$ where $k$ is the integer part of $j$.

You are correct that $1$ is an eigenvalue. In fact, your matrix $A$ is a non-negative matrix and there are lots of results on this. In particular the largest eigenvalues is the largest of the sums of rows or columns, which here is always $1$. You can check out some of the theory of non-negative matrices in

Matrix analysis, Horn&Johnson, Cambridge University Press,

The theory of matrices, F. Gantmacher, published by the AMS.

I was unable guess the sequence from first principle, so I had to generate the matrices and obtain the eigenvalues using Mathematica to then recover the sequence manually. Mathematica returns an expression for the non-zero eigenvalues in term of the Pochhammer symbol which simplifies to \begin{align} (-1)^n\frac{\Gamma \left(n+\frac{1}{2}\right)}{\sqrt{\pi } \,\Gamma (n+1)}\, . \end{align} You can then get rid of the $\Gamma(n+\frac{1}{2})$ by using the duplication formula \begin{align} \Gamma(2n)=\frac{2^{2n-1}\Gamma(n)\Gamma(n+\frac{1}{2})}{\sqrt{\pi}} \end{align}

Possibly the most convenient form the entries for your $A$ matrix is not to start with $d^j$ in terms of CGs but rather uses the expression \begin{align} d^j_{mm'}(\pi/2)&=(-1)^{m-m'}\frac{1}{2^j} \sqrt{\frac{(j+m)!(j-m)!}{(j+m')!(j-m')!}} \sum_k (-1)^k {{j+m'}\choose{k}} {{j-m'}\choose{k+m-m'}}\, . \end{align} There is no easy way to sum this into something simpler to manipulate, or get insight into the the actual entries, so it's hard to understand the structure of the eigenvalues unless one computes them.

As an example, for $j=5/2$, your matrix $A$ has the form \begin{align} A=\frac{1}{32}\left(\begin{array}{cccccc} 1 & 5 & 10 & 10 & 5 & 1 \\ 5 & 9 & 2 & 2 & 9 & 5 \\ 10 & 2 & 4 & 4 & 2 & 10 \\ 10 & 2 & 4 & 4 & 2 & 10 \\ 5 & 9 & 2 & 2 & 9 & 5 \\ 1 & 5 & 10 & 10 & 5 & 1 \\ \end{array} \right)\, . \end{align} The bi-symmetric nature of the matrix is obvious, but there's no obvious pattern in the entries by just staring at them. The eigenvalues are correctly given by (1) as $\{1,-\frac{1}{2},\frac{3}{8},0,0,0\}$.

BTW there's a recursive structure to the first and last row and the first and last column of the matrix. Consider the "immediately preceeding" case where $j=2$. Then your matrix has the form \begin{align} B=\frac{1}{16}\left( \begin{array}{ccccc} 1 & 4 & 6 & 4 & 1 \\ 4 & 4 & 0 & 4 & 4 \\ 6 & 0 & 4 & 0 & 6 \\ 4 & 4 & 0 & 4 & 4 \\ 1 & 4 & 6 & 4 & 1 \\ \end{array} \right) \end{align} Comparing with the $j=5/2$ case, the common factor in front is multiplied by $1/2$, and the entry $a_{1j}$ for $j=2,3,4,5$ on first row of for the $j=5/2$ case is the sum $b_{1,j-1}+b_{1,j}$ of the $j=2$ case. Thus, $a_{12}=b_{11}+b_{12}$, $a_{13}=b_{12}+b_{23}$ etc. and likewise for the last row, first column and last column. This fails for other rows. There might something there to explain why the non-zero eigenvalues for $j=2$ are a subset of those for $j=5/2$...

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    $\begingroup$ Impressive! May I ask you how you conjectured the expression of the eigenvalues for general n? This may provide some guidance to conjecture an expression for the eigenvectors and hopefully and idea of proof. Thanks! $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 8, 2021 at 11:01
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    $\begingroup$ I worked out the eigenvalues for every $j$ increasing $j$ from $1/2$ to $5$, and then it was just a matter of recovering the sequence and checking for larger $j$'s. I used Mathematica to recover the sequence and also tinkered with it a bit. It's still highly mysterious to me that the eigenvalues for $j_1$ should be a subset of those for $j_2$ if $j_1<j_2$., but the observation of @CosmasZachos on the expanding kernel is something that might provide insight into this. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 8, 2021 at 12:51

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