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Energy Eigenstate of a Hamiltonian

Physics Asked by Julia Volovich on August 15, 2021

What exactly are energy eigenstates?
For something like H = $homega left( begin{matrix}1 & 2i -2i & 4
end{matrix}right)$
, what the eigenstates be like the eigenvectors, so $(i,,,2)$ and $(-2i,,,1)$ ?

One Answer

Yes. In linear algebra, operators (like the matrix you wrote down) act on vectors. For some matrix $M$ and vector $vec v$, if $Mvec v = lambda vec v$ for some scalar $lambda$, then we call $vec v$ and eigenvector of $M$ and $lambda$ its associated eigenvalue.

In quantum mechanics, the state of whatever system you're modeling is (roughly) represented as a vector in some vector space. In this context, it is common to refer to vectors as states and eigenvectors as eigenstates.

Correct answer by J. Murray on August 15, 2021

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