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In the paper "Operator ordering in quantum optics theory and the development of Dirac’s symbolic method" by Hong-yi Fan, as referenced in this question, the authors mention the property $$:A:B::\;=\; :AB:$$ for normal-ordering operation $:\circ:$. This means that one can delete a normal-ordering symbol within another normal-ordering symbol (seemingly at odds with the answer to this question). The paper then goes on to prove the two relations defining the vacuum state $$|0\rangle\langle 0|=:e^{-a^\dagger a}:\tag{17}$$ and the parity operator $$e^{i\pi a^\dagger a}=:e^{-2a^\dagger a}:\tag{46}$$ for bosonic operators $a$. Are these two related in any useful way?

Making copious use of $:A:B::\;=\; :AB:$, I seem to be able to choose $A=1$ and set $::B::=:B:$ etc. to achieve \begin{aligned} |0\rangle\langle 0|\quad=\quad(|0\rangle\langle 0|)^2 \quad&\Rightarrow\quad :|0\rangle\langle 0|:\quad=\quad:(|0\rangle\langle 0|)^2:\\& \Rightarrow\quad :\quad:e^{-a^\dagger a}:\quad:\quad=\quad:\quad:e^{-a^\dagger a}:\quad:e^{-a^\dagger a}:\quad:\\ & \Rightarrow \quad:e^{-a^\dagger a}:\quad=\quad:e^{-a^\dagger a}e^{-a^\dagger a}:\\ & \Rightarrow \quad|0\rangle\langle 0|\quad=\quad:e^{-2a^\dagger a}:\\ & \Rightarrow \quad|0\rangle\langle 0|\quad=\quad e^{i \pi a^\dagger a}=(-1)^{a^\dagger a}. \end{aligned} Obviously this makes no sense, which leads me to suspect the relationship $:A:B::\;=\; :AB:$ and wonder if there is some "freshman's dream" problem in these calculations. It would be nice to know why this is incorrect, but my main question is still whether there is a useful relationship between the vacuum and the parity operator.

Bonus: should I expect the normally ordered operator $:e^{-m a^\dagger a}:$ to give something familiar for other integer values of $k$?

Qmechanic
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Quantum Mechanic
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  • @Oбжорoв I agree, it clearly leads to nonsensical results! But it must be valid sometimes, in the sense that "to normally order something that is already normally ordered is to do nothing"... otherwise what is this useful paper doing?? – Quantum Mechanic Jan 06 '22 at 19:19
  • @CosmasZachos thanks, I might need help unpacking your comments. I can write a Taylor series expansion for each function of $N$: the $O(1)$ term is the same of course, the coefficient of $N$ is $-1-1/2!-(-1)(-2)/3!-\cdots=-\ln 2$ for the former and $i \pi$ for the latter, etc. Are you simply saying that the eigenvalues of each operator are very different ($0,1,2,\cdots$ vs $\pm1$)? – Quantum Mechanic Jan 06 '22 at 21:39
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    Was just a formal wisecrack, to bypass the noncommutative structures of the right hand side. The lhs projector is, according to Fan, $1-N+N(N-1)/2!+...$ with zeros at n=1,2,3,... but don't imagine it is $\lim_{x\to 1} (1+x)^{-N}$ ... The parity operator is more elegantly written as $\cos \pi N$. The two appear unrelated, but it is an MSE question. If you are willing to sacrifice normal ordering interpretations, you may dismiss the red herring and contrast the left hand sides. – Cosmas Zachos Jan 06 '22 at 22:04
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    @CosmasZachos that helps. My takeaway from Fan's paper was that normal ordering is extremely useful, but perhaps this must be tempered (or I need to be aware of more mathematical subtleties to fully take advantage thereof) – Quantum Mechanic Jan 06 '22 at 22:57
  • If you want, I could expound on the idempotent operator function of Fan's, which condenses to the devilish $f(x)=1+\Gamma (1-x)/(x\Gamma (-x))$ by virtue of the residues of the simple poles of the Gamma function! Perhaps surprisingly, it vanishes for not just all integers >1, but even non-integers, not apparent from the series! If you wanted to know more, I could memorialize it in a fake non-answer. This function is unrelated to the cosine representing the parity operator. – Cosmas Zachos Jan 12 '22 at 19:05
  • @CosmasZachos your expositions are always appreciated – Quantum Mechanic Jan 13 '22 at 15:35

1 Answers1

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  1. Let the 3 quantities $f$, $g$ and $h$ depend on $a$ and $a^{\dagger}$. The nested property $$N(f N(g) h)= N(fgh)\tag{A}$$ of the normal order symbol $N$ is valid as long as one does not apply the CCR $$[a,a^{\dagger}]~=~{\bf 1}\tag{B}$$ under the normal-order symbol $N$, cf. e.g. this Phys.SE post.

  2. It turns out that the CCR (B) is used in the derivation of eqs. (17) & (46). Hence OP's last calculation is not valid.

  3. Let us for completeness sketch an independent proof of eqs. (17) & (46). If we define a vertex operator $$V(\beta)~=~N(e^{\beta a^{\dagger}a})~=~\sum_{n\in\mathbb{N}_0}\frac{\beta^n}{n!} (a^{\dagger})^n a^n, \tag{C}$$ and coherent state $$ |z)~=~e^{za^{\dagger}}|0\rangle, \qquad z~\in~\mathbb{C}, \qquad a|z)~\stackrel{(B)}{=}~z|z),\tag{D}$$ then we calculate $$V(\beta)|z)~\stackrel{(C)+(D)}{=}~|(1\!+\!\beta)z).\tag{E} $$ It is not hard to see from eq. (E) that $$\begin{align} V(\beta)V(\beta^{\prime})~=~&V\left((\beta\!+\!1)(\beta^{\prime}\!+\!1)\!-\!1\right), \cr V(0)~=~&{\bf 1}, \cr V(-1)~=~&|0\rangle\langle 0|,\cr V(-2)~=~&e^{i\pi a^{\dagger}a},\end{align} \tag{F} $$ which confirm eqs. (17) & (46). Note the implicit use of the CCR (B). $\Box$

References:

  1. Hong-yi Fan, Operator ordering in quantum optics theory and the development of Dirac's symbolic method, J. Opt. B: Quantum Semiclass. Opt. 5 (2003) R147.
Qmechanic
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  • Thanks! It was not explicit to me that the CCR was used in the derivations. Is that because defining $|n\rangle\propto a^{\dagger}|0\rangle$ implicitly assumes the CCR to use ladder operators to shift the eigenvalue of $a^\dagger a$? Must be – Quantum Mechanic Jan 07 '22 at 14:32
  • Or even.. does $|0\rangle\langle 0|^2=|0\rangle\langle 0|$ implicitly assume the CCR? – Quantum Mechanic Jan 07 '22 at 15:28
  • I updated the answer. – Qmechanic Jan 07 '22 at 15:51
  • Fantastic, thanks! So we can easily prove $V(-1)^2=V(-1)$, $V(-2)^2=V(0)$, etc., find rotation operators $\exp{i \theta a^\dagger a}=V(-1+e^{i\theta}$ and keep going... Are your latter expressions normalized? I certainly agree that $a$ has eigenstate $V(\beta)|z)$ with eigenvalue $(1+\beta)z$ but that does not imply that $V(\beta)|z)$ is normalized. – Quantum Mechanic Jan 07 '22 at 20:03
  • The counterexample is that there should be no linear amplification operator that enacts $\alpha|z_1)+\beta|z_2)\to\alpha|\lambda z_1)+\beta|\lambda z_2)$ [equivalently, $\lambda^{a^\dagger a}|z\rangle =\exp(-|\lambda z|^2/2 + |z|^2/2)|\lambda z\rangle$ in my usual notation]. – Quantum Mechanic Jan 07 '22 at 20:04
  • Oh I see: the operator $V(\beta)$ is defined exactly by its action on the unnormalized states $|z)$ that you defined; the different normalizations between $|z_1)$ and $|z_2)$ exactly cancel the different actions of $V$ on the normalized states, so you can "linearly amplify" the unnormalized states $|z)$ – Quantum Mechanic Jan 07 '22 at 21:00