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Concept
Clebsch–Gordan coefficients
Summary
In physics, the Clebsch–Gordan (CG) coefficients are numbers that arise in angular momentum coupling in quantum mechanics. They appear as the expansion coefficients of total angular momentum eigenstates in an uncoupled tensor product basis. In more mathematical terms, the CG coefficients are used in representation theory, particularly of compact Lie groups, to perform the explicit direct sum decomposition of the tensor product of two irreducible representations (i.e., a reducible representation into irreducible representations, in cases where the numbers and types of irreducible components are already known abstractly). The name derives from the German mathematicians Alfred Clebsch and Paul Gordan, who encountered an equivalent problem in invariant theory.
From a vector calculus perspective, the CG coefficients associated with the SO(3) group can be defined simply in terms of integrals of products of spherical harmonics and their complex conjugates. The addition of spins in quantum-mechanical terms can be read directly from this approach as spherical harmonics are eigenfunctions of total angular momentum and projection thereof onto an axis, and the integrals correspond to the Hilbert space inner product. From the formal definition of angular momentum, recursion relations for the Clebsch–Gordan coefficients can be found. There also exist complicated explicit formulas for their direct calculation.
The formulas below use Dirac's bra–ket notation and the Condon–Shortley phase convention is adopted.
Angular momentum operators are self-adjoint operators jx, jy, and jz that satisfy the commutation relations
where εklm is the Levi-Civita symbol. Together the three operators define a vector operator, a rank one Cartesian tensor operator,
It is also known as a spherical vector, since it is also a spherical tensor operator. It is only for rank one that spherical tensor operators coincide with the Cartesian tensor operators.
By developing this concept further, one can define another operator j2 as the inner product of j with itself:
This is an example of a Casimir operator.
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