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I'm reading Advanced Quantum Mehcanics of Schwabl and I'm having a hard time trying to reproduce this calculation (page 57). Consider the following general two-particle state: $$\displaystyle{|2\rangle=\int d^3x_1 d^3x_2 \; \varphi(\bf{x_1},\bf{x_2})\psi^\dagger(\bf{x_1})\psi^\dagger(\bf{x_2})}|0\rangle$$

The claim is that the normalization condition $\langle2|2\rangle=1$ yields to the following: $$\langle2|2\rangle=\int d^3x_1 d^3x_2 \, \varphi^*(\bf{x_1},\bf{x_1})(\varphi(\bf{x_1},\bf{x_2})+\varphi(\bf{x_2},\bf{x_1}))=1,$$

which is the part I don't get.

Any help would be very valuable for me, I'm following this book on my own and it is now very descriptive about the steps or the calculations it takes. I'm getting used to second-quantization formalism, so it is non-trivial for me to derive this.

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    $\begingroup$ can you clarify where it hurts? … seems straightforward (at least superficially). $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 23:19
  • $\begingroup$ @ZeroTheHero Would you mind to take the time to write the details then? $\endgroup$
    – Saoirse
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 23:38
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    $\begingroup$ well I could but I’m not sure that’s the point. I’m just don’t know where or why you get stuck. I see some else filled in the blanks, but it would be good in the future to expand a bit on where you get stuck. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 0:18

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We can expand the inner product by using two additional integration variables: \begin{align} \langle 2|2\rangle&=\langle 0|\int d^3x_3 d^3x_4 \varphi^*(\mathbf{x_3},\mathbf{x_4})\psi(\mathbf{x_3})\psi(\mathbf{x_4})\int d^3x_1 d^3x_2 \varphi(\mathbf{x_1},\mathbf{x_2})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_1})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_2})|0\rangle\\ &=\int d^3x_1 d^3x_2 d^3x_3 d^3x_4 \varphi^*(\mathbf{x_3},\mathbf{x_4}) \varphi(\mathbf{x_1},\mathbf{x_2})\langle 0|\psi(\mathbf{x_3})\psi(\mathbf{x_4})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_1})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_2})|0\rangle. \end{align} Using reasoning like in your previous question, we can evaluate the expectation value \begin{aligned} \langle 0|\psi(\mathbf{x_3})\psi(\mathbf{x_4})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_1})\psi^\dagger(\mathbf{x_2})|0\rangle&=\langle 1_{\mathbf{x}_3},1_{\mathbf{x}_4}|1_{\mathbf{x}_1},1_{\mathbf{x}_2}\rangle \\ &=\left[\delta({\mathbf{x}_3}-{\mathbf{x}_1})\delta({\mathbf{x}_4}-{\mathbf{x}_2})+ \delta({\mathbf{x}_3}-{\mathbf{x}_2})\delta({\mathbf{x}_4}-{\mathbf{x}_1})\right], \end{aligned} where we have used the second-quantized notation saying that, for example the state $|1_{\mathbf{x}_1},1_{\mathbf{x}_2}\rangle$ has $1$ boson with coordinates $\bf{x}_1$ and one with coordinates $\bf{x}_2$ (if both have the same coordinates, we get an extra factor of $\sqrt{2}$ on both the bra and the ket, which is accounted for by the sum over the two delta functions).

We can evaluate the integrals over $\mathbf{x}_1$ and $\bf{x}_2$ using the delta functions (I guessed wrong about the initial labels so we have to adjust the labels) to find \begin{align} \langle 2|2\rangle &=\int d^3x_3 d^3x_4 \varphi^*(\mathbf{x_3},\mathbf{x_4}) \left[\varphi(\mathbf{x_3},\mathbf{x_4})+\varphi(\mathbf{x_4},\mathbf{x_3})\right]\\ &=\int d^3x_1 d^3x_2 \varphi^*(\mathbf{x_1},\mathbf{x_2}) \left[\varphi(\mathbf{x_1},\mathbf{x_2})+\varphi(\mathbf{x_2},\mathbf{x_1})\right]. \end{align} This is exactly the desired expression, up to a typo in $\phi^*(\mathbf{x}_1,\mathbf{x}_2)$.

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  • $\begingroup$ I should had specified (in addition to the title) that here we are dealing with bosons, so we are free to have $(\psi^\dagger(\bf{x_1}))^2$ and the same with the annihilation operator. However I feel one can get similar conditions through delta functions due to the fact we are dealing with an expectation value. $\endgroup$
    – Saoirse
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 23:41
  • $\begingroup$ oh, that would have saved a bunch of typing! Updated $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 23:56
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for answer this. It was really simple, the thing is that up to know I always tried to handle witht the operators themselves, using anticommutation relations and things like that, I never applied them to the states. Your answer makes completely sense to me. $\endgroup$
    – Saoirse
    Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ You are very welcome. Ground states like $|0\rangle$ are often helpful because it is often straightforward to characterize what an operator does on them. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 21:26

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