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In physics, the Schrödinger picture or Schrödinger representation is a formulation of quantum mechanics in which the state vectors evolve in time, but the operators (observables and others) are mostly constant with respect to time (an exception is the Hamiltonian which may change if the potential changes).
In quantum mechanics, dynamical pictures (or representations) are the multiple equivalent ways to mathematically formulate the dynamics of a quantum system.. The two most important ones are the Heisenberg picture and the Schrödinger picture.
In quantum mechanics, the interaction picture (also known as the interaction representation or Dirac picture after Paul Dirac, who introduced it) [1] [2] is an intermediate representation between the Schrödinger picture and the Heisenberg picture.
This implies that a Schrödinger picture is always available. Matrix mechanics easily extends to many degrees of freedom in a natural way. Each degree of freedom has a separate X operator and a separate effective differential operator P , and the wavefunction is a function of all the possible eigenvalues of the independent commuting X variables.
Examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger's cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon, which attempts to demonstrate the ability of a hypothetical finite being to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Commutator relations may look different than in the Schrödinger picture, because of the time dependence of operators. For example, consider the operators x(t 1), x(t 2), p(t 1) and p(t 2). The time evolution of those operators depends on the Hamiltonian of the system.
But in a life-or-death case like an observer getting into the box with Schrödinger's cat, the observer will only have one successor, since one of the outcomes will ensure the observers death. So it seems that the many-minds interpretation advises one to get in the box with the cat, since it is certain that one's only successor will emerge ...
While in principle this approach to solving quantum dynamics is equivalent to the Schrödinger picture or Heisenberg picture, it allows more easily for the inclusion of incoherent processes, which represent environmental interactions. The density operator has the property that it can represent a classical mixture of quantum states, and is thus ...