| Date: | Mon, 25 Feb 2008 |
| From: | Denis Chebikin |
| Subject: | SPAMS Thursday 5pm in 4-231 |
Hi everybody,
SPAMS continues this week with a talk by Nikhil on the Wigner-Eckart
theorem and its applications. There will be dinner in 2-349 afterwards.
Denis, Leonid, and Michael
2007-08 SPAMS organizers
In perturbative Quantum mechanics it is often required to compute the
matrix elements of operators in some preferred basis. Knowing certain
properties of an operator can reduce the work required in computing
them. The Wigner-Eckart theorem is one such example where the class of
'tensor operators' have a certain transformation property, making the
calculation of its matrix elements easier. A short proof of the theorem
using representations of SO(3) will be presented and its applications to
the Zeeman and Stark effects explored.