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American Journal of Physics

Basic properties of certain types of operators: A unified treatment

Chandana Roy

Published Apr 1, 1978• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Using normal operators as a common footing, the basic properties of Hermitian operators, unitary operators, and anti-Hermitian operators are treated from a unified viewpoint. The interlinks among the eigenvalues of these operators are elucidated with the help of suitable prescriptions for mapping in the plane of complex eigenvalues. Further, we show that some of the characteristics of Hermitian operators hold good under a perspective which is broader than the defining criterion for Hermitian operators.

DOI
10.1119/1.11312

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Using normal operators as a common footing, the basic properties of Hermitian operators, unitary operators, and anti-Hermitian operators are treated from a unified viewpoint. The interlinks among the eigenvalues of these operators are elucidated with the help of suitable prescriptions for mapping in the plane of complex eigenvalues. Further, we show that some of the characteristics of Hermitian operators hold good under a perspective which is broader than the defining criterion for Hermitian operators.
This chapter develops a basic working knowledge of operators — objects central to quantum mechanics. The fact that quantum operators are linear determines how they may be manipulated, so linearity forms the chapter's first topic. The adjoint of an operator is then introduced. This provides the basis for Hermitian or self-adjoint operators, which are discussed for both discrete eigenvalue systems and wavefunctions. Projection operators, which ‘project out’ a certain part of a quantum state, are then introduced. These form the basis for the identity operator — a sum over projection operators — which changes the representation in which a state is expressed without changing the state itself. Finally, unitary operators are briefly discussed, including the defining unitarity condition, the fact that such operators preserve inner products, and their physical meaning as effecting transformations in space and time. Unitary operators are discussed in greater detail in Appendix D.
Operators in quantum mechanics which represent observables are of a special type: They are linear and Hermitian. Such operators not only form computation tools, but also form the most effective language in terms of which the theory can be formulated. This chapter presents important properties of linear operators and their eigenfunctions. It discusses the features of various operators which are necessary for studying quantum mechanical systems. The chapter shows how rich and beautiful the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics is. There exists a class of eigenvalue problems, the so-called parity-time reversal (PT) -symmetric non-Hermitian Hamiltonian problems. They have arisen in recent years in a number of physical contexts such as localization transitions, vortex pinning and population biology. Such non-Hermitian Hamiltonians can be used to describe certain experimental phenomena. PT-symmetry has been noticed in certain optical systems, such as optical couplers, microwave billiard and large-scale temporal lattices.
A unified treatment of the Pauli algebraic forms of the linear operators defined on a unitary linear space of two dimensions over the field of complex numbers C(1) is given. The Pauli expansions of the normal and nonnormal operators, unitary and Hermitian operators, orthogonal projectors, and symmetries are deduced in this frame. A geometrical interpretation of these Pauli algebraical results is given. With each operator, one can associate a generally complex vector, its Pauli axis. This is a natural generalization of the well-known Poincaré axis of some normal operators. A geometric criterion of distinction between the normal and nonnormal operators by means of this vector is established. The results are exemplified by the Pauli representations of the normal and nonnormal operators corresponding to some widespread composite polarization devices.