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The mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics (QM) is built upon the concept of an operator. Physical pure states in quantum mechanics are represented as unit-norm vectors (probabilities are normalized to one) in a special complex Hilbert space. Time evolution in this vector space is given by the application of the evolution operator.
In quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a system is an operator corresponding to the total energy of that system, including both kinetic energy and potential energy.Its spectrum, the system's energy spectrum or its set of energy eigenvalues, is the set of possible outcomes obtainable from a measurement of the system's total energy.
In quantum mechanics, the exchange operator ^, also known as permutation operator, [1] is a quantum mechanical operator that acts on states in Fock space. The exchange operator acts by switching the labels on any two identical particles described by the joint position quantum state | x 1 , x 2 {\displaystyle \left|x_{1},x_{2}\right\rangle } . [ 2 ]
Creation and annihilation operators can act on states of various types of particles. For example, in quantum chemistry and many-body theory the creation and annihilation operators often act on electron states. They can also refer specifically to the ladder operators for the quantum harmonic oscillator. In the latter case, the creation operator ...
The momentum operator can be described as a symmetric (i.e. Hermitian), unbounded operator acting on a dense subspace of the quantum state space. If the operator acts on a (normalizable) quantum state then the operator is self-adjoint. In physics the term Hermitian often refers to both symmetric and self-adjoint operators. [7] [8]
Since the angular momenta are quantum operators, they cannot be drawn as vectors like in classical mechanics. Nevertheless, it is common to depict them heuristically in this way. Depicted on the right is a set of states with quantum numbers ℓ = 2 {\displaystyle \ell =2} , and m ℓ = − 2 , − 1 , 0 , 1 , 2 {\displaystyle m_{\ell }=-2,-1,0 ...
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. [2]: 1.1 It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science. Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that classical physics cannot.
In quantum mechanics, a translation operator is defined as an operator which shifts particles and fields by a certain amount in a certain direction. It is a special case of the shift operator from functional analysis.