Paper 4, Section II, A
The Hamiltonian for a quantum system in the Schrödinger picture is , where is independent of time and the parameter is small. Define the interaction picture corresponding to this Hamiltonian and derive a time evolution equation for interaction picture states.
Suppose that and are eigenstates of with distinct eigenvalues and , respectively. Show that if the system is in state at time zero then the probability of measuring it to be in state at time is
Let be the Hamiltonian for an isotropic three-dimensional harmonic oscillator of mass and frequency , with being the ground state wavefunction (where ) and being wavefunctions for the states at the first excited energy level . The oscillator is in its ground state at when a perturbation
is applied, with , and is then measured after a very large time has elapsed. Show that to first order in perturbation theory the oscillator will be found in one particular state at the first excited energy level with probability
but that the probability that it will be found in either of the other excited states is zero (to this order).
You may use the fact that