7 Symmetry and Conservation Laws 17-1 Symmetry In classical physics there are a number of quantities which are conserved— such 4 momentum, energy, and angular momentum. Conservation theorems ahout corresponding quantities also exist in quantum mechanics. The most beau- fiful thing of quantum mechanies 1s that the conservation theorems can, in a sense, be derived from something else, whereas in classical mechanics they are practically the starting points of the laws. (There are ways in classical mechanics todo an analogous thing to what we will do in quantum mechanics, but it ean be done only ata very advanced level.) In quantum mechanics, however, the conserva~ tion laws are very deeply related to the principle of superposition of amplitudes, and to the symmetry of physical systems under various changes, This 1s the subject ofthe present chapter. Although we will apply these ideas mostly to the conserva tion of angular momentum, the essential point is that the theorems about the conservation of all kinds of quantities are—in the quantum mechanics—related to the symmetries of the system, ‘We begin, therefore, by studying the question of symmetries of systems. A very simple example is the hydrogen molecular ion—we could equally well take the ‘ammonia molecule—in which there are two states. For the hydrogen molecular jon we took as our base states one in which the electron was located near proton umber 1, and another an which the electron was located near proton number 2. The two states—which we called | 1) and | 2)—are shown again in Fig, 17-1(a). Now, so long as the two nuclei are both exactly the same, then there is @ certain symmnerry in this physical system. That is to say, if we were to reflect the system in the plane halfway between the two protons—by which we mean that everything ‘on one side of the plane gets moved to the symmetric position on the other side— ‘xe would get the situations in Fig. 17-i(b). Since the protons are identical, the ‘operation of reflection changes | I) into | 2) and | 2) into | 1). We'll call this refiee- tion operation P and write Pil) = 12) P\2)= 2). any $0 our P isan operator inthe sense tha it “does something” to a state to make a new state, The interesting thing is that P operating on any sate produces some siher sate of the sytem ‘Now P, like any of the other operators we have described, has matrix elements which can be defined by the usual obvious notation, Namely, Pus UlPlt) and Py = | P/2) are the matrix elements we get if we multiply | 1) and P| 2) on the left by (P| From Eq, (17-1) they are PID = Pun Ul2= UP |2)= Piss UD = 1 72) In the same way we can get Pa, and Po, The matrix of P—with respect to the ‘base system | 1) and | 2)—is oO P-()): ‘We see once again that the words operator and mavrix in quantum mechanics sre 7a) m4 17-4 Symmetry 17-2 Symmetry and conservation 17-3 The conservation laws 17-4 Polarized light 17-5 The 17-6 Summary of the rotation matrices integration of the A° Review: Chapter 52, Vol. 1, Symmerry in Physical Laws Reference: Angular Momentum in Quantum Mechanics: AR, Edmonds, Princeton University Press, 1957 @ YY, bY, > o 1 Ye, m9 YY Pl Fig. 17-1. If the stotes |1) and | 2) fre reflected in the plone P-P, they go into |2) and | 1), respectively.PROB. L_ > Pros. Z d al > STEAMED 1p >» (9) (b) fo 17-2. tne syimetic system, 6 pre 7) sate develops ox shown i port (ol, pure | 2) state will develop os in port (b). practically interchangeable. There are slight technical diferences—like the ditfer- fence between a “numeral” and a “number"—but the distinction is something pedantic that we don't have to worry about. So whether P defines an operation, or is actually used to define a matrix of numbers, we will calli interchangeably an operator or @ matrix. [Now we would like to point out something. We will suppase that the physics of the whole hydrogen molecular ion system is symomerrical. It doesn't have to be it depends, for instance, on what ese is near it. But if the system is symmetrical, the following idea should certainly be true. Suppose we start at r = 0 with the system in the state | ) and find after an interval of timer that the system turns out to be in a more complicated stuation—in some linear combination of the two base states. Remember that in Chapter 8 we used to represent “going for 2 period of time” by multiplying by the operator O. ‘That means that the system would after a while—say 15 seconds to be definite—be in some other state. For ‘example, it might be 273 parts ofthe state | 1) and +y/1/3 parts of the state | 2), and we would write | vat 15sec) = O(15,0)| 1) = VIB|I) + VIB|2. (A) Now we ask what happens if we start the system in the symmetric state | 2) and wait for 15 seconds under the same conditions? It is clear that if the world is symmetric—as we are supposing—we should get the state symmetric to (17.4) | vat 15sec) = O(15,0)| 2) = VIB\2)+ TBD. 7S) ‘The same ideas are sketched diagrammatically in Fig, 17-2. So if the physics of system is symmetrical with respect to some plane, and we work out the behavior of a particular state, we also know the behavior of the state we would get by reflecting the original state in the symmetry plane. We would like to say the same things a litte bit more generally—which means alittle more abstractly. Let @ be any one of a number of operations that you could perform on a system without changing the physics. For instance, for @ we right be thinking of P, the operation of a reflection in the plane between the two atoms in the hydrogen molecule. Or, in a system with two electrons, We might be thinking of the operation of interchangig the two electrons. Another possibilty would be, in a spherically symmetric system, the operation of a rotation of the whole system through @ finite angle around some axis—which wouldn't change the physics. Of course, we would normally want (0 give each special case some special notation for @. Specifically, we will normally define the (9) to be the operation “rotate the system about the y-axis by the angle @”. By O we mean just any one of the operators we have described or any other one—which leaves, the basie physical situation unchanged. Let's think of some more examples. If we have an atom with no exteral ‘magnetic field or no external electric feld, and if we were to turn the coordinates around any axis, it would be the same physical system. Again, the ammonia molecule is symmetrical with respect to a reflection in a plane parallel to that of the three hydrogens—s0 long as thee is no electric field. When there isan electric field, when we make a reflection we would have to change the electic field also, 2and that changes the physical problem. But if we have no external field, the molecule is symmetrical Now we consider a general situation. Suppose we start withthe state | ¥:) and after some time or other under given physical conditions it has become the state | 2). We can write Iva) = Oly). 076) {ou can be thinking of Eq. (17.).] Now imagine we perform the operation on the whole system. The state | Ys) will be transformed to & sat | ¥), which wwe can also write as Q | Ys). Also the state |Y2) is changed into | yj) — 0 va) Now if he physi is symmetrical under Q (don’t forgt the ft 6 nota general property of systems), then, waiting fr the same time under the same conditions, wee should have = 01). a7 (Lake Eq. (17.5).] But we can write @ | ¥s) for | vi) and 6 | ya) for | 2) s0 (17.7) can also be written Ol¥2) = OG | v1). (178) we now replace | ¥2) by O | 1)—Eq. (17.6)—we get 90 \¥:) = 00 \y1). (79) I's not hard to understand what this means. Thinking of the hydrogen ion it says that: “making a reflection and waiting a while"—the expression on the right of Eq. (I7.9)—is the same as “waiting a while and then making a reflection”— the expression on the left of (17.9). These should be the same so long as U doesn’t change under the reflection, Since (17.9) is true for any starting state | ¥), it is really an equation about the operators: 00 - 00 (7.10) ‘This is what we wanted to get—it isa mathematical statement of symmetry. When Eq. (17.10) is true, we say that the operators 0 and @ commute. We can then define “symmetry” in the following way: A physical system is symmetric with respect tothe operation O when © commutes with U, the operation of the passage of time, [In terms of matrices, the product of two operators is equivalent to the matrix product, so Eq. (17.10) also holds for the matrices Q and U for a system which is symmetrie under the transformation Q.] Incidentally, since for infinitesimal times € we have 0 = 1 — ife/h—where is the usual Hamiltonian (Gee Chapter 8)—you can see that if (17.10) is tue, itis also true that OA = AO. 7a) So (17.11) is the mathematical statement of the condition for the symmetry of @ physical situation under the operator Q. It defines a symmetry. 17-2 Symmetry and conservation Before applying the result we have just found, we would like to discuss the idea of symmetry a litle more. Suppose that we have a very special situation after we operate on a state with Q, we get the same state. Thiss a very special case, but let's suppose it happens to be true for a state | Yo) that | ¥/) = @ | Yo) is physically the same state as | Yo). That means that |v’) is equal to | ¥o) except for some phase factor:+ How can that happen? For instance, suppose that we { Incidentally, you can show that Oris necessarily a unitary operator—which means ‘that iit operates on |p) to give some number times |Y), the number must be of the form 8, where's eal. Its.a small point, and the proof ress onthe following observation. ‘Any operation like a reRlection ofa rotation doesnt lose any particles, so the normaliza~ ton of 4) and |p} mast be the Same; they can only afer by pure nagar pase ws