Teaching Quantum Mechanical Commutation Relations via an Optical Experiment

Abstract

The quantum mechanical commutation relations, which are directly related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, have a crucial importance for understanding the quantum mechanics of students. During undergraduate level courses, the operator formalisms are generally given theoretically and it is documented that these abstract formalisms are usually misunderstood by the students. Based on the idea that quantum mechanical phenomena can be investigated via geometric optical tools, this study aims to introduce an experiment, where the quantum mechanical commutation relations are represented in a concrete way to provide students an easy and permanent learning. The experimental tools are chosen to be easily accessible and economic. The experiment introduced in this paper can be done with students or used as a demonstrative experiment in laboratory based or theory based courses requiring quantum physics content; particularly in physics, physics education and science education programs.

12 pages 2 figures Basic Experimental Design

References in corpus (4)

• Scheme for proving the bosonic commutation relation using single-photon interference
• Improving Students' Understanding of Quantum Measurement
• Experimental verification of the commutation relation for Pauli spin operators using single-photon quantum interference
• Direct experimental verification of quantum commutation relations for Pauli operators