Wednesday, 22 August 2018

homework and exercises - Finding the normal ordered momentum operator for free theory


I am asked to show that the normal ordered momentum operator for free theory is


^pμ=d3p(2π)3pμapap.


The free theory Lagrangian is given by



L=12μϕμϕ12m2ϕ.


I have shown that for this Lagrangian the energy-momentum tensor is


Tμν=μϕνϕημνL.


From here we can show that the energy is


p0=d3xT00=d3x(12ϕ2+12(ϕ)2+12m2ϕ2),


and the three-momentum is


pi=d3xT0i=d3x˙ϕiϕ.


When quantizing these expressions, I am trying to work in the Schrodinger picture. In order to show the first expression, I will work with the spatial and temporal parts of the four-momentum separately due to the difference in their expressions in the classical field theory. At this point I'm only trying to show that the spatial part of the normal ordered momentum is consistent with the first equation of this post. Quantizing gives us


ˆϕ(x)=d3p(2π)32Ep[apeipx+apeipx].


I am told that this expression actually contains the time part in the exponentials, but since this is the Schrodinger picture we choose to define this operator at some fixed time which we conveniently choose to be t=0. Given that, the time derivative of the above expression is



˙ϕ(x)=id3p(2π)3Ep2[apeipxapeipx],


and


iϕ=id3p(2π)32Eppi[apeipxapeipx].


Per my rough calculation this means that


˙ϕiϕ=d3pd3k(2π)6Ep4Ekki[apakei(p+k)xapakei(pk)xapakei(kp)x+apakei(p+k)x].


Then, using the exponential definition of the delta function and integrating through x and p I found


pi=d3x˙ϕiϕ=d3k(2π)312ki[akakakakakak+akak].


I appear to have made a mistake in sign somewhere but I'm not too worried about that -- I can go back and find it on my own time. That said,, this is something like what I want except for the first and last terms in square brackets. If I do this in the Heisenberg picture I will get an exponentially decaying factor attached to the first and last terms which I think will make those two terms disappear but I feel like I should be able to get the same result in the Schrodinger picture, and I can't quite understand why I'm not.




No comments:

Post a Comment

Understanding Stagnation point in pitot fluid

What is stagnation point in fluid mechanics. At the open end of the pitot tube the velocity of the fluid becomes zero.But that should result...