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I am new to Mathematica and am trying to apply it to quantum mechanics problems.

The practice project I am dealing with now is considering quantum harmonic oscillator and ladder operator algebra used to solve it. I had to define replacements, which would take into account all of the algebraic properties when dealing with ladder operators (linearity, commutation relation, non-commutative product, etc.), and then apply these replacements to the Hamiltonian in standard p-x form to convert it into ladder operator form.

I've encountered a bit of a snag in the final replacement, which should expand:

(a+b)^2 = a**a + a**b + b**a + b**b

where a, b are operators. Conventional // Expand does this commutatively. Is there a way to do it for a general power?

All the help is much appreciated!

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    $\begingroup$ Try Block[{Times = NonCommutativeMultiply}, Replace[Expand[(a + b)^2], c_^k_. :> (Times @@ ConstantArray[c, k]), 1]] $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s missing motivation ♦
    Commented Oct 1, 2018 at 19:26
  • $\begingroup$ Hm, no, it doesn't seem to work. Naturally, the first and easiest thing I tried is just straight out define noncomexpand := {(a_+b_)^2 -> a**a + a**b + b**a + b**b} and applying this as a replacement works, but eventually I will be dealing with higher powers and this will not be sufficient.. $\endgroup$
    – Nejc Kejzar
    Commented Oct 1, 2018 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ "it doesn't seem to work" - a concrete example of what does not work would be very helpful in seeing what's going on, as opposed to just saying "it doesn't work". $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s missing motivation ♦
    Commented Oct 1, 2018 at 19:53
  • $\begingroup$ Apologies, you are right. Certainly, your code works when evaluated simply as it is. But when I try to apply it to the the end result of a series of replacements with @@, it goes haywire. The main error message is ReplaceRepeated but I see no associated problems with that. Perhaps I may be using the syntax wrong. The main idea is to define the Hamiltonian, then just apply a set of replacement rules to it, so that we transform it into ladder operator form. Could you perhaps define your code as a replacement rule (such that it can be used with /. syntax)? $\endgroup$
    – Nejc Kejzar
    Commented Oct 1, 2018 at 20:06
  • $\begingroup$ Can you come up with at least a small/simple example of where it fails? Also, you will note I used Replace[] instead of ReplaceAll[] (/.), as indiscriminate replacement can lead to hard-to-diagnose behavior. $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s missing motivation ♦
    Commented Oct 1, 2018 at 20:07

3 Answers 3

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Take a look at the NCAlgebra package.

NCExpand[(a + b)^2]
(* a ** a + a ** b + b ** a + b ** b *)
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Block[{Power = (NonCommutativeMultiply @@ ConstantArray[##]&)}, Distribute[(a + b)^2]]

a ** a + a ** b + b ** a + b ** b

Also: a variation on J.M.'s suggestion in the comments:

Block[{Times = NonCommutativeMultiply}, Expand[(a + b)^2] /. 
  Power -> (Times @@ ConstantArray[##] &)]

a ** a + a ** b + b ** a + b ** b

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With the teaching assistants help, we were able to procure the following form for noncommutative expand, which works (when applied as a replacement):

noncomexpand:={x_^{n_?IntegerQ} /; \[Not] ConstQ[x] && n > 0 :> CenterDot @@ ConstantArray[x, n]}

Hope this helps!

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