WarmUp Exercise #16, 10/18 (Assignment Due 10/23)
Please answer the following 3 questions
regarding the operator we call a-hat.
The operator we call a-hat is defined as a-hat = (2m hbar
w) -0.5 ( ip + mwx ), where x and
p are our usual position and
momentum operators.
Questions
1. What is the unit of a-hat?
2. What is a-hat dagger (the adjoint of a-hat)?
Is it Hermitian?
3. What combination of a-hat, a-hat dagger, and suitable constants
looks like the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian? How close can you get it?
Answer in the form below, a short answer for each is fine.
This report is due by 8:00 am Tuesday morning.