Quantum Mechanics II & Atomic Physics [Optionals IAS Mains Physics]: Questions 1 - 7 of 38

If we knowing the value of various types of angular momenta, term symbols gives three kinds of information,

Total orbital angular momentum, L

Multiplicity of the terms,

Total angular momentum,

• We can do vector sums of these vector. But it becomes easy if we consider components as these add together as scalars.
• Theref…

Pauli spin matrices or Pauli matrices are a set of matrices, which are complex, Hermitian and unitary matrices. Pauli spin matrices defined as,

The Pauli vector is defined by,

From question another vector operators are and are given.

Now, mapping mechanism from a Pauli matrix basis and a vector operator basis are provided as,

Similarly,

From commutat…

The orbital angular momentum can be obtained at once by replacing by the corresponding operators in the position representation,

The Cartesian components of are

Clearly, angular momentum doesn՚t exist in a one dimensional space.

The importance of this observable is that it is compatible with any of the Cartesian components of the angular momentum

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• Description of the experiment: First, silver (Ag) atoms are heated in an oven. The oven has a small hole through which some of the silver atoms escape. As shown in figure (1) , the beam gees through a collimator and is then subjected to an inhomogeneous magnetic field produced by a pair of pole pieces, one of which has a very sharp edge.
• We now must…