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American Journal of Physics

Second Quantization as a Graded Hilbert Space Representation

Donald H. Kobe

Published Dec 1, 1966• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A review of the second quantization formulation of quantum mechanics is given based on the idea of a graded Hilbert space whose elements are represented by column matrices containing zero, one, two, ···, particle functions. The creation and annihilation operators are defined in terms of intuitive ideas about adding a particle to or removing a particle from the system. The (anti)commutation relations are shown to follow from the (anti)symmetry of the wavefunctions. The field operators which describe the creation or annihilation of a particle at a point are then obtained and their properties discussed. These operators are then used to express general operators in second quantization. Finally, a basis is introduced and the equations of occupation-number space are obtained.

DOI
10.1119/1.1972537

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A review of the second quantization formulation of quantum mechanics is given based on the idea of a graded Hilbert space whose elements are represented by column matrices containing zero, one, two, ···, particle functions. The creation and annihilation operators are defined in terms of intuitive ideas about adding a particle to or removing a particle from the system. The (anti)commutation relations are shown to follow from the (anti)symmetry of the wavefunctions. The field operators which describe the creation or annihilation of a particle at a point are then obtained and their properties discussed. These operators are then used to express general operators in second quantization. Finally, a basis is introduced and the equations of occupation-number space are obtained.
Second quantization in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is given in a simplified way using eigenstates of the number operator. The field creation operator is shown to be the operator which adds a particle with a delta-function wave function to the system, while the field annihilation operator removes a particle with a delta-function wave function from the system. The field creation operator is proved to be the Hermitian conjugate of the annihilation operator. The commutation (anticommutation) relations for boson (fermion) field operators are proved from the symmetry (antisymmetry) of the many-particle wave function. The second quantized form of one- and two-particle operators is obtained from their form in wave mechanics using the definition of the field creation and annihilation operators.
This is a self-contained and hopefully readable account on the method of creation and annihilation operators (also known as the Fock space representation or the "second quantization" formalism) for non-relativistic quantum mechanics of many particles. Assuming knowledge only on conventional quantum mechanics in the wave function formalism, we define the creation and annihilation operators, discuss their properties, and introduce corresponding representations of states and operators of many-particle systems. As the title of the note suggests, we cover most topics treated in sections 6.7 and 6.8 of Feynman's "Statistical Mechanics: A Set of Lectures". As a preliminary, we also carefully discuss the symmetry of wave functions describing indistinguishable particles. We note that all the contents of the present note are completely standard, and the definitions and the derivations presented here have been known to many. Although the style of the present note may be slightly more mathematical than standard physics literatures, we do not try to achieve full mathematical rigor.(Note to experts: In particular we here DERIVE the (anti)commutation relations of the creation and annihilation operators, rather than simply declaring them. In this sense our approach is quite close to that of Feynman's. But we here focus on the action of creation/annihilation operators on general NNN body wave functions, while Feynman makes a heavy use of Slater-determinant-type states from the beginning. We hope that our presentation provides a better perspective on the formalism.)
Abstract Focusing on systems of many identical particles, Chapter 2 introduces appropriate operators to describe their properties in terms of Schwinger’s “measurement symbols.” The latter are then factorized into “creation” and “annihilation” operators, whose fundamental properties and commutation/anticommutation relations are derived in conjunction with the Pauli exclusion principle. This leads to “second quantization” with the Hamiltonian, number, linear and angular momentum operators expressed in terms of the annihilation and creation operators, as well as the occupation number representation. Finally, the concept of coherent states, as eigenstates of the annihilation operator, having minimum uncertainty, is introduced and discussed in detail.
Abstract Chapter 2 provides a review of pertinent aspects of the quantum mechanics of systems composed of many particles. It focuses on the foundations of quantum many-particle physics, the many-particle Hilbert spaces to describe large assemblies of interacting systems composed of Bosons or Fermions, which lead to the versatile formalism of second quantization as a convenient and eminently practical language ubiquitous in the mathematical formulation of the theory of many-particle systems of quantum matter. The main objects in which the formalism of second quantization is expressed are the Bosonic or Fermionic creation and annihilation operators that become, in the position basis, the quantum field operators.
In this chapter we describe a technique to deal with identical particles that is called second quantization . Despite being a technique, second quantization helps a lot in understanding physics. One can learn and endlessly repeat newspaper-style statements particles are fields , fields are particles without grasping their meaning. Second quantization brings these concepts to an operational level. Since the procedure of second quantization is slightly different for fermions and bosons, we have to treat the two cases separately. We start with considering a system of identical bosons, and introduce creation and annihilation operators (CAPs) that change the number of particles in a given many-particle state, thereby connecting different states in Fock space. We show how to express occupation numbers in terms of CAPs, and then get to the heart of the second quantization: the commutation relations for the bosonic CAPs. As a next step, we construct field operators out of the CAPs and spend quite some time (and energy) presenting the physics of the particles in terms of these field operators. Only afterward, do we explain why all this activity has been called second quantization. In Section 3.4 we then present the same procedure for fermions, and we mainly focus on what is different as compared to bosons. The formalism of second quantization is summarized in Table 3.1.
The formalism of the second quantization is developed entirely within the framework of the Dirac-Jordan representation theory. The equivalence of this formalism and the methods of ordinary coordinate-spin space is shown, and the equations of "connection" are fully developed. It is shown that the "creation" and "annihilation" operators, and indeed all operators which do not commute with the quantized Hamiltonian and hence whose representatives cannot be explicitly given in a configuration space of a fixed number of dimensions are easily treated in terms of the general representation theory and arise quite naturally. Both types of statistics are considered, and the Fock-Dirac density matrix and self-consistent field are treated as a simple illustration.