arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Weigert.
Consider a spin s prepared in a pure state. It is shown that, generically, the moduli of the (2s+1) spin components along three directions in space determine the state unambiguously. These probabilities are accessible experimentally by means of a standard Stern-Gerlach apparatus. To reconstruct a pure spin state is therefore possible on the basis of 3(2s+1) measured intensities.
Multiplication of two elements of the special unitary group SU(N) determines uniquely a third group element. A BAker-Campbell-Hausdorff relation is derived which expresses the group parameters of the product (written as an exponential) in terms of the parameters of the exponential factors. This requires the eigen- values of three (N-by-N) matrices. Consequently, the relation can be stated analytically up to N=4, in principle. Similarity transformations encoding the time evolution of quantum mechanical observables, for example, can be worked out by the same means.
Based on the previously proposed notions of action operators and of quantum integrability, frequency operators are introduced in a fully quantum-mechanical setting. They are conceptually useful because a new formulation can be given to unitary perturbation theory. When worked out for quantum spin systems, this variant is found to be formally equivalent to canonical perturbation theory applied to nearly-integrable systems consisting of classical spins. In particular, it becomes possible to locate the quantum-mechanical operator-valued equivalent of the frequency denominators which may cause divergence of the classical perturbation series. The results established here link the concept of quantum-mechanical integrability to a technical question, namely the behaviour of specific perturbation series.