Paper 4, Section II, C
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.
Let and be eigenstates of with distinct eigenvalues and respectively. Show that if the system was in the state in the remote past, then the probability of measuring it to be in a different state at a time is
Let the system be a simple harmonic oscillator with , where . Let be the ground state which obeys . Suppose
with . In the remote past the system was in the ground state. Find the probability, to lowest non-trivial order in , for the system to be in the first excited state in the far future.