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42 votes
5 answers
8k views

Hilbert space vs. Projective Hilbert space

Hilbert space and rays: In a very general sense, we say that quantum states of a quantum mechanical system correspond to rays in the Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$, such that for any $c∈ℂ$ the state $\...
user929304's user avatar
  • 4,685
31 votes
5 answers
12k views

What is a state in physics?

What is a state in physics? While reading physics, I have heard many a times a "___" system is in "____" state but the definition of a state was never provided (and googling brings me totally ...
Manish Kumar Singh's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
5k views

Unitary quantum field theory

What do physicists mean when they refer to a quantum field theory being unitary? Does this mean that all the symmetry groups of the theory act via unitary representations? I would appreciate if one ...
Yaniel Cabrera's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
4k views

What is a coherent state?

In quantum mechanics, what exactly is a coherent state, and how does it differ from other states?
wrongusername's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
5k views

Difference between Fock space and Hilbert Space

I am beginner in QFT. I would like to know why there is a need of constructing Fock space for a $N$-particle system? Why can't we represent this many body system just as the tensor product of Hilbert ...
walber97's user avatar
  • 1,348
12 votes
3 answers
2k views

Definition of an operator in quantum mechanics

In J.J. Sakurai's Modern Quantum Mechanics, the same operator $X$ acts on both, elements of the ket space and the bra space to produce elements of the ket and bra space, respectively. Mathematically, ...
D12ac's user avatar
  • 131
12 votes
4 answers
9k views

How is a bound state defined in quantum mechanics?

How is a bound state defined in quantum mechanics for states which are not eigenstates of the Hamiltonian i.e. which do not have definite energies? Can a superposition state like $$\psi(x,t)=\frac{1}{\...
SRS's user avatar
  • 26.8k
9 votes
3 answers
4k views

What is quantum entanglement? [closed]

What is quantum entanglement? Please be pedagogical. Edit: I have updated my background under my profile.
Amir Rezaei's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
677 views

Are all bound states normalizeable?

Following Griffiths eq. (2.91) on p. 52 one may define a bound state to be an energy eigenstate $$H|E\rangle=E|E\rangle\tag{1}$$ with an energy being smaller than the potential far away from the ...
user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
2k views

Intuition on the GNS construction and how it relates to usual quantum mechanics

Reading one paper, the GNS construction is mentioned as follows: It is important to recall that a result (theorem) due to Gel'fand, Naimark and Segal (GNS) establishes that for any $\omega$ on $\...
Gold's user avatar
  • 36.4k
8 votes
3 answers
385 views

Equivalent definitions of total angular momentum

Consider the equality \begin{equation}\exp\left(-\frac{i}{\hbar}\boldsymbol{\phi J}\right)\left|x\right>=\left|R(\phi)x\right>,\end{equation} where $\left|x\right>$ denotes a position ...
user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
681 views

Why do self-adjoint operators have to be densely defined?

I have been watching the Schiller lectures on QM and have been going through ‘quantum mechanics and quantum field theory’ by Dimock. Both seem to ensure operators are densely defined, especially if ...
Toby Peterken's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
545 views

Definition of the $S$-Matrix in Schwartz QFT-Book: Why is $\langle f, t_f | i, t_i \rangle$ in the Schroedinger picture, and not Heisenberg-picture?

On page 51, (equation 5.1), Mathew Schwartz introduces the $S$-matrix as \begin{align} \langle f| S | i \rangle_{Heisenberg} = \langle f, \infty | i, -\infty \rangle_{Schrödinger} \end{align} Were $|i,...
Quantumwhisp's user avatar
  • 6,763
6 votes
1 answer
199 views

Correspondence between mathematician's and physicist's vertex operator algebra (VOA)

I have some conceptual doubts to clear up, in terms of piecing together what we learn of a vertex operator algebra (VOA) in conformal field theory, and how it is defined by a mathematician, say from ...
GRNS's user avatar
  • 155
5 votes
4 answers
3k views

Difference between pure quantum states and coherent quantum states

In the post What is coherence in quantum mechanics? and the answer by udrv in this post it seems to imply that a pure quantum state and coherent quantum state are the same thing since any pure state ...
John Doe's user avatar
  • 297

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