How is the momentum operator derived in Dirac formalism? I am reading Quantum Mechanics by Sakurai and he gives the following derivation. But I don't understand how he goes from the third equation to the last equation in (1.7.15). What I don't understand is where the partial derivative with respect to x′ comes from. Here is the derivation from the book.
We now examine how the momentum operator may look in the x-basis - that is, in the representation where the position eigenkets are used as base kets. Our starting point is the definition of momentum as the generator of infinitesimal translations:
(1−ipΔx′ℏ)|α⟩=∫dx′J(Δx′)|x′⟩⟨x′|α⟩=∫dx′|x′+Δx′⟩⟨x′|α⟩=∫dx′|x′⟩⟨x′−Δx′|α⟩=∫dx′|x′⟩(⟨x′|α⟩−Δx′∂∂x′⟨x′|α⟩).
Comparison of both sides yields
p|α⟩=∫dx′|x′⟩(−iℏ∂∂x′⟨x′|α⟩)
or
⟨x′|p|α⟩=−iℏ∂∂x′⟨x′|α⟩,
Answer
He's doing a linear approximation. Suppose Δx is very small. Then ⟨x−Δx|α⟩ is almost equal to ⟨x|α⟩, but not quite, because Δx isn't zero. So we do a first order approximation: Let's write ⟨x|α⟩ as f(x). Then f(x−Δx)≈f(x)−Δx∂f∂x|Δx=0. In Dirac's notation, ⟨x−Δx|α⟩≈⟨x|α⟩−Δx∂∂x⟨x|α⟩.
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