Physics 350 Spring (12) 2012

Harmonic Oscillator: Operator methods and Dirac notation

The time-independent Schrodinger equation for the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator,

defined by the potential V (x) = 12 m 2 x2 , can be written in operator form as

1
H(x) = p2 + m2 2 x2 }(x) = E(x).
{ (1)
2m

In the algebraic solution of this equation the Hamiltonian is factored as follows

= 1 (m
H x i
p)(m
x + i
i
p) [x, p]
2m 2
1
= (
a+ a
+ )~. (2)
2

x, p] = xp px = i~ and
where we have used the position-momentum commutation relation [
introduced the raising and lowering operators a
+ and a
, respectively, defined as

1
=
a x i
(m p) (3)
2~m
which have the commutation relation [
a , a
+ ] = 1.
When working with the harmonic oscillator it is convenient to use Diracs bra-ket notation
in which a particle state or wavefunction is represented by a ket

|ni = n (x) (4)

and an integral is represented by a bracket

Z

hm|ni = m (x)n (x)dx. (5)

[More correctly, the ket state |ni is basis independent and thus to express this state as
a function of position we would write hx|ni = n (x) where the position basis is given by
|xi = (x0 x)]. For an oscillator in a non-stationary state (x, t = 0) we can write
X
(x, t = 0) = cn |ni (6)
n

where the expansion coefficients are simply expressed as cn = hn|i.

In this Dirac notation the action of the raising and lowering operators can be written as

+ |ni =
a n + 1 |n + 1i (7)

1
Physics 350 Spring (12) 2012

and

|ni =
a n |n 1i (8)

where the nth stationary state can be generated via

1
|ni = (a+ )n |0i (9)
n!
and the ground state is given explicitly by
2 /2
|0i = (/)1/4 ex (10)

with = m/~.

|ni = (n + 1 )~ |ni
Exercise: Use Eqs. (2), (6), and (7) to show that H 2

This operator formalism provides an elegant means to compute expectation values of

dynamical variables. To see this we first express the position and momentum operators in
terms of the raising and lowering operators:
r
~
x = (
a+ + a
) (11)
2m
and r
~m
p = i a+ a
( ). (12)
2
Thus, for example, the expectation value of x2 can be computed as

hx2 in = hn|
x2 |ni
~
= hn|
a+ a
+ + a+ a
+ a
a
+ + a |ni
a
2m
~ p p p 
= (n + 2)(n + 1) hn|n + 2i + n2 hn|ni + (n + 1)2 hn|ni + n(n 1) hn|n 2i
2m
~
= (2n + 1) (13)
2m
x2 |ni = hn|
where we use the convention hn| x2 ni and we have used the orthogonality relation
hn|mi = n,m to evaluate the brackets.

Exercise: Use operator methods to show that the expectation value of the kinetic energy is
p2 /2min = En /2.
half the total energy, i.e., hKin = h