# Direct product of spin representations

Consider a system of two 1/2-spins. Under some conditions the Hilbert space can be decomposed into the direct sum of spin-0 and spin-1 representations: $\frac12\otimes\frac12=0\oplus1$.

When I write this formula on the board, I immediately get an objection that $1/4$ is not equal to 1 ! My question is as follows, how to explain this equation to the audience of physicists. Preferably in one or two sentences, concise, mathematically correct, but without going into much mathematical details.

• What do you mean by "audience of physicists?" Are these students, professors, or what? – Chris Jan 29 '18 at 9:44
• @Chris Actually, I have heard this question from a professor. But I imagine, that students would also have this idea. – yarchik Jan 29 '18 at 9:45
• What do you understand when you write $\frac12\otimes\frac12=0\oplus1$ on the board? It's better to write $2\otimes 2=3\oplus 1$. – SRS Jan 29 '18 at 10:24
• @SRS That at least dimensionality (but not only) is the same $(2*1/2+1)*(2*1/2+1)=4=(2*0+1)+(2*1+1)$. – yarchik Jan 29 '18 at 10:29
• This sounds like a question about teaching, not physics. I recommend writing $\mathbf{R}_{1/2}$ instead of $1/2$, or something like that, the first couple times. If you actually wrote down the equation $1/2 \times 1/2 = 0 + 1$ without any explanation whatsoever of what the symbols mean, it's not the audience's fault for not understanding. It's your fault for being unclear. – knzhou Jan 29 '18 at 10:47

Each spin-1/2 particle is associated with a $(2\times\frac{1}{2}+1)$=2-dimensional vector space $\mathbb{V}$ as far as its spin degree of freedom is concerned. A composite system of two spin-1/2 particles is associated with a 4-dimensional vector space which is a direct product $\mathbb{V}_1\otimes \mathbb{V}_2$ of two 2-dimensional vector spaces $\mathbb{V}_1$ and $\mathbb{V}_2$. Under a similarity transformation a $4\times 4$ matrix representing an element of $SU(2)$ that acts on the space $\mathbb{V}_1\otimes \mathbb{V}_2$, can be reduced to a block-diagonal form consisting of block matrices of dimensions $3\times 3$ and $1\times 1$ acting on invariant subspaces of dimensions 3 and 1 respectively.
In technical terms, it means that the 4-dimensional representation is reducible into a 3-dimensional and 1-dimensional irreducible representations, and symbolically written as $2\otimes 2=3\oplus 1$ which respectively corresponds to three triplet states of spin-1 and one singlet state of spin-0 of the composite system.
• @yarchik This is standard notation. For an on-site explainer, try the question What does "the ${\bf N}$ of a group" mean?. – Emilio Pisanty Feb 1 '18 at 10:00