On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:06 PM, Aaron Meurer <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Ondrej Certik <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Ondrej Certik <[email protected]> 
>> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Ondrej Certik <[email protected]> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Sean Vig <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>> In working on some stuff with spin states, I ran into some problems with 
>>>>> the
>>>>> current implementation of the Wigner small-d matrix, Rotation.d in
>>>>> sympy.physics.quantum.spin. I had written methods to change bases using 
>>>>> the
>>>>> Wigner D-function [0] and in testing decided to try
>>>>>>>>qapply(JzBra(1,1)*JzKet(1,1).rewrite('Jx'))
>>>>> which should be 1, as the spin ket is rewritten in the Jx basis and then
>>>>> back to the Jz basis to apply the innerproduct, but I have that it gives 
>>>>> 0.
>>>>> I traced this back to a bug in the Rotation.d function, which currently 
>>>>> has
>>>>> an open issue [1]. For the Wigner D-function and the small d-matrix, the
>>>>> conventions laid out in Varshalovich "Quantum Theory of Angular Momentum".
>>>>> It seems the d-matrix is fine for positive values of angle argument, but
>>>>> does not obey the symmetry d(j,m,mp,-beta)=(-1)**(m-mp)*d(j,m,mp,beta) and
>>>>> does not agree with the tables in Varshalovich. Those terms that fail for
>>>>> the j=1 case are in an XFAIL test in my branch. What is odd is that when I
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think there is a bug in the code. See my comment here:
>>>>
>>>> http://code.google.com/p/sympy/issues/detail?id=2423#c3
>>>>
>>>> The correct results for general beta are:
>>>>
>>>> d(1, 0, 1, beta) = sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>>>> d(1, 1, 0, beta) = -sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>>>>
>>>> However, sympy gives:
>>>>
>>>>>>> Rotation.d(1,0,1,beta)
>>>>  ⎽⎽⎽
>>>> ╲╱ 2 ⋅(2⋅cos(β) + 2)
>>>> ────────────────────
>>>>         4
>>>>>>> Rotation.d(1,1,0,beta)
>>>>   ⎽⎽⎽
>>>> -╲╱ 2 ⋅(cos(β) + 1)
>>>> ───────────────────
>>>>         2
>>>>
>>>> Which is wrong (it looks quite ok, that it changes sign, as it should,
>>>> but something is wrong with the cos(beta) thing).  The sympy code
>>>> implements the "Eq. 7 in Section 4.3.2 of Varshalovich."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ran the equation used to define the d-matrix through Mathematica, I got
>>>>> results that agreed with the sympy output, so the problem may be in the
>>>>> equation and not a bug in the code. If anyone could take a look at that, 
>>>>> I'd
>>>>> appreciate it.
>>>>
>>>> Which *exact* equation did you run through Mathematica? Eq. 7 in
>>>> section 4.3.2? What *exactly* did you get? Did you get an expression
>>>> involving cos(beta), just like sympy above? Can you paste here the
>>>> Mathematica code? I'll run it with my Mathematica, to verify, that we
>>>> didn't make a mistake.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Now we just need to systematically look at it, and nail it down. We
>>>> need to get the correct expressions:
>>>>
>>>> d(1, 0, 1, beta) = sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>>>> d(1, 1, 0, beta) = -sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>>>>
>>>> one way or the other, for general beta. Then things will start to work.
>>>>
>>>> Sean, let me know if you have any questions to the above.
>>>>
>>>> Once we fix this, we'll move on to the other problems you raised.
>>>>
>>>> I am CCing Brian, who implemented that code in SymPy. However, we
>>>> should be able to fix this ourselves Sean ---- all we need to do is to
>>>> take the eq. (7), and see what expression we get for J=1, M=1, M'=0,
>>>> just put it there by hand (don't use mathematica) and see what you
>>>> get.
>>>>
>>>> Post here your results, and I'll verify them with my independent
>>>> calculation and we'll nail it down.
>>>
>>> Ok, I think that I have nailed it down. There are actually several problems:
>>>
>>> 1) First of all, this is the range for beta:
>>>
>>> 0 <= beta <= pi
>>>
>>> see Varshalovich, page 74.
>>>
>>> 2) See the attached screenshot of my calculation, which calculates
>>> d(j, 0, 1, beta) from the equation (7) on page 75, and shows, that it
>>> is equal to
>>> sin(beta)/sqrt(2), consistent with Varshalovich result in the table 4.4.
>>>
>>>
>>> As such, from 2) it follows, that the sympy result (see my previous
>>> email) is *wrong*, as can be checked by substituting beta = pi/3 and
>>> checking against sin(beta)/sqrt(2). For beta=pi/2, it happens to be
>>> equal, but that is pure accident.
>>>
>>> From 1) it follows, that you can't call it for beta=-pi/2, you need to
>>> adjust alpha and gamma instead.
>>
>> Actually, I wasn't very clear here. You use the formula (7) to
>> calculate the wigner d function for *any* J, M, M', for 0<=beta<=pi.
>> In particular, you get the formulas:
>>
>> d(1, 1, 0, beta) = -sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>> d(1, 0, 1, beta) = +sin(beta)/sqrt(2)
>>
>> And I am stressing here that this is *only* valid for 0 <= beta <= pi.
>> You can equivalently write the sin(beta) using cos as sin(beta) =
>> sqrt(1-cos**2(beta)), which is valid in this whole domain. You
>> actually only get expressions involving cos(beta) from (7), but since
>> we are on this restricted domain, it doesn't matter.
>
> I admit I don't have a clue what you guys are talking about, but

I wasn't super confident in this either, but I am becoming now. I will
put my understanding of everything + derivations into my
http://theoretical-physics.net/ notes. So far there is some info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner_D-matrix

but it's not very informative, at least I didn't understand from it
what is going on when I read it couple weeks ago.

> wouldn't it be easier to use cos(pi/2 - beta)?

cos(pi/2 - beta) = sin(beta)

but how would it make things easier?

Ondrej

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