Translation operator and momentum operator
(personal thinking)
In a Hilbert space like
encoding the position variable
Given a vector
We can consider the matrix
Given a vector
In the continuous case everything is analogous: the vectors are functions
According to Taylor's theorem,
so we have the momentum operator
So Laplace transform is nothing but a change of basis: from the Dirac delta basis (the eigenbasis of "position") to the eigenbasis of momentum.
Why do we choose only some eigenvectors in Quantum Mechanics, i.e., only
i.e., why we take Fourier transform.
- In quantum mechanics, the states of a system are described by wavefunctions. The wavefunctions that are physically meaningful are those that are square-integrable (bound states), meaning their absolute square integrates to 1 over all space. This ensures that the total probability of finding a particle somewhere in space is 1.
- The functions
are not square-integrable for all . However, the functions are orthogonal over all space, and they form a basis for the space of square-integrable functions. This is why the Fourier transform, which uses these functions, is so useful in quantum mechanics.