Angular Momentum

We review some basic classical mechanics. Consider a classical point particle of mass
whose position at time t is denoted by r(t) moving in a specied central potential V (r)
(the potential depends only on r = |r|) in three dimensions. The energy is given by
E =
1
2

dr
dt

dr
dt
+ V (r) . (1)
The force is given by

F =

V = r
dV
dr
and points along the radial direction since V
depends only on r; its magnitude depends on the magnitude of r. This is a central force.
Clearly the torque r

F vanishes and hence, angular momentum is conserved. Since the
angular momentum, r p, is perpendicular to r, the constancy of the angular momentum
implies that the radius vector of the particle, r lies in a plane perpendicular to the angular
momentum. Thus angular momentum conservation reduces three-dimensional motion to
motion in a plane. For the gravitational potential, closed orbits are ellipses.
Choose the plane of motion to be the xy-plane and use polar coordinates.
E =
1
2
( r
2
+ r
2

2
) + V (r) (2)
Note that in elementary parlance

is the angular velocity and the angular part of the
kinetic energy is
1
2
r
2

2
=
1
2
I
2
where we have used the denition of moment of inertia.
We re-express the angular part of the kinetic energy in terms of the conserved quantity,
the orbital angular momentum. The magnitude of the angular momentum is given by
r
2

(or I). More explicitly
1
r p = r v = rr ( r r + r

) = z r
2

i.e., the angular momentum is orthogonal to the plane.

Since L = r
2

the angular part of the kinetic energy can be rewritten
2
as
E =
1
2
r
2
+
L
2
2r
2
+ V (r) . (3)
This separation important result and occurs in free particle Hamiltonian in quantum
mechanics. The energy describes a particle moving in one dimension (with the one -
dimensional coordinate r restricted to non-negative values) in an eective potential given
1
The velocity consists of the radial velocity r along r plus a tangential velocity r

along

.
2
Substituting for

from the expression for L
1
2
r
2

2
=
1
2
r
2
_
L
r
2
_
2
=
L
2
2r
2
.
1
by
V
eff
(r) = V (r) +
L
2
2r
2
.
This allows us to provide a qualitative description of the motion. Draw gures in class.
Angular momentum commutation relations
We will need the commutation relations for coordinates and momenta of a particle
in three dimensions. Consider a particle in three dimensions with the coordinate and
momentum operators along the three directions denoted by r
l
and p
j
= i/r
j
. The
notation r
1
= x, r
2
= y, and r
3
= z allows a compact way of representing the relations.
The commutation relations are
[r
i
, r
j
] = 0 , [p
i
, p
j
] = 0 and [r
i
, p
j
] = i
ij
(4)
which state that the coordinates can be measured simultaneously, the momenta along the
three directions can be measured simultaneously, so can a coordinate and a momentum
component along a dierent direction. We will use x, y, and z or 1 and 2 and 3 for the
three directions.
We wish to nd the commutation relations for the angular momentum operators de-
ned in the text and in the lecture. . Since

L = r p, we have
L
x
= yp
z
zp
y
, L
y
= zp
x
xp
z
and L
z
= xp
y
yp
x
.
Note that the order of the operators does not matter since x commutes with p
y
etc., but
it is conventional to place the dierential operators to the right. Check that these are
Hermitian operators.
Finding the commutation relations is tedious; a little thought can reduce the labor.
We obtain
[L
x
, L
y
] = iL
z
,
[L
y
, L
z
] = iL
x
, and
[L
z
, L
x
] = iL
y
.
Angular momentum in spherical coordinates
We wish to write L
x
, L
y
, and L
z
in terms of spherical coordinates. Recall that the
gradient operator in spherical coordinates (See Griths Classical Electrodynamics) is

= r
r
+

1
r

1
r sin

.
2
You should be able to write this down from a simple geometrical picture of spherical
coordinates. Using

L = r p ir

and orthonormality of the unit vectors r,

,
and

we nd

L = (i)
_

1
sin

_
.
We use the expressions for the unit vectors (obtained from geometry)
x = r sin cos +

cos cos

sin
y = r sin sin +

cos sin +

sin
z = r cos

sin .
Given

L in spherical coordinates above and the cartesian unit vectors we obtain L
z
using
L
z
= z

L. This is the simplest of the three components and only one term survives. We
nd L
z
= i / .
Give a simple geometrical interpretation: the angular momentum along z in classi-
cal mechanics arises from rotation about the z=axis, i.e., from temporal variations in
. The linear momentum along x in classical mechanics arises from time variation of
the position x. Since in quantum mechanics p
x
i/x, one might naively expect
L
z
i / and this expectation is checked by the calculations outlined above.
Computing the scalar products yields
L
x
= i
_
sin

cos cot

_
,
L
y
= i
_
cos

sin cot

_
,
L
z
= i

.
A very useful operator is the total angular momentum operator dened by
L
2
=

L

L = L
2
x
+ L
2
y
+ L
2
z
. One can verify that
[L
2
, L
x
] = [L
2
, L
y
] = [L
2
, L
z
] = 0 . (5)
The commutation relations imply that only two of the set of four operators{L
x
, L
y
, L
z
, L
2
}
can have denite values (with no uncertainty) in a quantum mechanical state simultane-
ously; conventionally they are chosen to be L
2
and L
z
.
Given the cartesian components we can compute an explicit expression for L
2
in spher-
ical polar coordinates. A straightforward calculation yields

L =
2
_

2

2
+ cot

+
1
sin
2

2
_
(6)
=
2
_
1
sin

_
sin

_
+
1
sin
2

2
_
. (7)
3
This is precisely the derivative combinations that appear in the Laplacian in spherical
coordinates,
We recall that the Laplacian in spherical polar coordinates is given by

2
=
1
r
2

r
_
r
2

r
_
+
1
r
2
sin

_
sin

_
+
1
r
2
sin
2

2
. (8)
Thus the kinetic energy operator (denoted by H
0
) in three-dimensional, single-particle
quantum mechanics can be written as follows: Note that
H
0
=
p p
2
=

2
2

2
Substituting for the Laplacian we have
H
0
=

2
2
1
r
2

r
_
r
2

r
_


2
2
_
1
r
2
sin

_
sin

_
+
1
r
2
sin
2

2
_
(9)
=

2
2
1
r
2

r
_
r
2

r
_
+

L
2
2r
2
. (10)
We have restored the hat on L to remind you that it is an operator.
This is an important identity and you should be familiar with it. The angular part
of the kinetic energy operator is

L
2
2r
2
. The classical calculation would have naturally
suggested this form.
Since L
2
and L
z
commute they share a set of eigenvectors, i.e., we can nd a set of
functions f(, ) such that
L
2
f(, ) =
2
f(, )
L
z
f(, ) = f(, ) .
Of course, the eigenvalues are not the same; they do not even have the same dimensions.
We have denoted the corresponding eigenvalues by
2
and . This way the dimensions
are taken care of and and are numbers. We have to determine the eigenvalues and
eigenvectors.
Now it is easy to obtain the eigenfunctions of L
z
:
L
z
f, ) = f(r, , ) .
Since L
z
= i / (as you remember!) is eectively a constant and we consider
functions of only and set f(, ) = g(). Canceling a factor of we have
i
d
d
g() = g() e
i
.
4
Since under + 2 the system returns back to the original position and we expect
nothing to be changed. Therefore, we demand that is an integer which will be denoted
by m. (This is a slippery argument and I will just let it slip by.) Thus the eigenfunctions
of L
z
are exp(im) with eigenvalue m.
Please remember this!
We determine the eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions of L
2
next. Canceling the con-
stant factor
2
the eigenvalue equation reads

_
1
sin

_
sin

_
+
1
sin
2

2
_
f(, ) = f(, ) .
First the result: the eigenfunctions are the spherical harmonics denoted by Y
m

(, )
and the eigenvalues are ( + 1)
2
where is a non-negative integer. That is to say
= ( + 1). The superscript m indicates the eigenvalue of L
z
, m.
We use separation of variables to solve the equation. Let f(, ) = ()() and
multiply the equation by sin
2
and divide by and obtain

d
2

d
2
=
sin

d
d
sin
d
d
+ sin
2
.
The left-hand side and right-hand side are respectively functions of and only and so
they have to be equal to the same constant for the equation to be satised for all values
of the variables. We denote the separation constant by m
2
we obtain () = e
im
. This
is consistent with our result for the eigenfunctions of L
z
. The other equation becomes
sin
d
d
sin
d
d
+ ( + 1) sin
2
m
2
= 0 . (11)
We have used the notation = ( + 1) anticipating the result. Note that there is no
loss of generality since one can always dene thus. The diculty is to show that is a
non-negative integer. We let z = cos and write the equation as
(1 z
2
)
d
2

dz
2
2z
d
dz
+
_
( + 1)
m
2
1 z
2
_
= 0 . (12)
This is known as the associated Legendre equation. If m = 0 this is known as the
Legendre (dierential) equation. If P

(z) the Legendre polynomial of order is a solution

to the Legendre equation we can verify that
P
m

(z) = (1 z
2
)
m/2
d
m
dz
m
P

(z)
is a solution to the associated Legendre equation. The spherical harmonic is dened by
Y
m

e
im
P
|m|

(cos ) with a proportionality constant given in the text.

5
In Dirac notation we can write the normalized ket |m Y
m

(, ) in spherical
coordinates.
L
2
|m = ( + 1)
2
|m (13)
L
z
|m = m|m (14)
A very important constraint can be deduced as follows: The norm of L
x
|m determined
by m| L
2
x
|m is non-negative. Similarly, m| L
2
y
|m 0. Thus we can write
m| (L
2
x
+ L
2
y
) |m = m| (L
2
L
2
z
) |m 0. (15)
Now we know
L
2
|m = ( + 1)
2
|m and L
2
z
|m = m
2

2
|m.
Using the fact that |m is normalized we have m
2
( + 1) . This implies that for
a given value of the magnitude of m (recall that m can be a positive or a negative
integer while is a non-negative integer) has a maximum possible value. With a little bit
more eort (see Griths) we can deduce that for a given value of (this determines the
magnitude of the total angular momentum to be ( + 1)
2
) m can only assume integer
values ranging from up to +.
You must remember that for a given , m assumes one of 2 +1 values, ranging
from
, + 1 , 1, 0, +1, , 1, .
The spherical harmonics form a complete orthonormal set. What precisely does this
mean? Any reasonable function of and can be expanded in terms of these:
f(, ) =

=0

m=
c
m
Y
m

(, ) (16)
and as before we have
c
m
=
_
d [Y
m

(, )]

f(, ) . (17)
We have used the abbreviated notation
_
d =
_

0
d sin
_
2
0
d .
This follows from orthonormality:
_

0
d sin
_
2
0
d
_
Y
m

(, )
_

Y
m

(, ) =

mm

. (18)
6