QUANTICS – Rudiments of Quantum Physics

David Peak

Rudiments of Quantum Mechanics (QM)

Laura Ruetsche

This chapter evaluates whether unitary equivalence is an appropriate criterion of physical equivalence for quantum theories that fall outside the scope of the comforting uniqueness results. It describes the Stone-von Neumann and Jordan-Wigner uniqueness results, provides examples of unitarily inequivalent representations, and proposes an alternative to unitary equivalence as a criterion for physical equivalence. The chapter also offers an impressionistic introduction to the rudiments of operator algebra theory.

IntroBooks

Luciano Colombo

The rudiments of the non-relativistic quantum theory are here worked out, in preparation for its thorough application to atomic and molecular physics developed in the next chapters. While the formal architecture will rely on a number of statements, definitions, and mathematical properties introduced either for self-consistency and for further convenience, its physical foundation is found for comparison to the phenomenological and conceptual achievements discussed in the previous chapter. All properties here reported—although representing just a summary of quantum mechanics—are discussed together with their formal proof, so as to provide good training for getting familiar with the quantum formalism.

J. R. LUCAS

Paul Busch, PEKKA J. LAHTI, Juha-Pekka Pellonpää +1 more