SELECTION RULES

39

1.6 SELECTION RULES

Selection rules follow from the requirement that relevant matrix elements are non-zero in the application of Fermis Golden Rule Equation (1.103). Besides doing explicit and occasionally time-consuming calculations of the matrix elements, it is sometimes possible to ascertain that they are zero by a conservation law. We will discuss conservation laws and their connection to symmetries in Chapter 3. But we are in a position to give some examples here using the results we obtained in this chapter. The same selection rules apply to emission and absorption of photons because they are governed by the matrix element B O A and its Hermitian conjugate where the operator O represents an electric or magnetic multipole moment. An important selection rule is provided by the parity operator P. The parity operator P makes a reection of a vector through the origin of a coordinate system so it changes x x. It follows that under parity the momentum p p, the angular momentum L = x p (x) (p) = L, etc. Two successive parity operations are equivalent to the unit operator so P2 = 1. From the denition of the inverse of an operator we have PP1 = P1 P = 1 so we have P = P1 . We require that the ket AP = P A that results from the parity operation has the same norm as the ket A . Therefore we require AP AP = A A . But AP = PA = A P so we have that P P = 1. Because P1 P = 1 it follows that P = P1 or with P1 = P that the parity operator is Hermitian. Its eigenvalues are therefore real and observable and we write P A = P (A) A . Because P2 = 1 we have that 2 P (A) = 1 or P (A) = 1. We talk about even and odd parity. Now consider the transformation of the electric dipole moment under the parity operator D = B ex A BP e(x) AP = P (B) P (A) B e(x) A = P (B)P (A) B ex A . If the parity operator is a symmetry operator (physical properties of the system are the same before and after the parity operation) then we must require that P (B) P (A) = 1 or P (B) = P (A) where we have used that P can only take on the values 1. Thus E1 transitions can only take place between states A and B if they have opposite parity. Conversely, if experiment shows that a certain transition is forbidden to go by E1, the two states in question must have the same parity or parity is not a good quantum number. We will see in Chapter 3 that parity is a good quantum number for electromagnetic and strong interactions (such as the nuclear force) but not for weak interactions (such as -decay). We next consider magnetic dipole transitions M1. As shown in the previous section they are governed by the magnetic dipole moment that transforms under the parity operator as = B (e/2m)L A Bp (e/2m)(+L) AP = +P (B)P (A) B (e/2m)L A . Note the absence of the sign that was present in the case of E1 transitions. Thus M1 transitions can only take place between states A and B if they have the same parity.