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Displacement operator

Mathematical operator in quantum optics

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Source updated April 27, 2026

In the quantum mechanics study of optical phase space, the displacement operator for one mode is the shift operator in quantum optics,

${\hat {D}}(\alpha )=\exp \left(\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{\ast }{\hat {a}}\right)$ ,

where $\alpha$ is the amount of displacement in optical phase space, $\alpha ^{*}$ is the complex conjugate of that displacement, and ${\hat {a}}$ and ${\hat {a}}^{\dagger }$ are the lowering and raising operators, respectively.

The name of this operator is derived from its ability to displace a localized state in phase space by a magnitude $\alpha$ . It may also act on the vacuum state by displacing it into a coherent state. Specifically, ${\hat {D}}(\alpha )|0\rangle =|\alpha \rangle$ where $|\alpha \rangle$ is a coherent state, which is an eigenstate of the annihilation (lowering) operator. This operator was introduced independently by Richard Feynman and Roy J. Glauber in 1951.

01Properties

The displacement operator is a unitary operator, and therefore obeys ${\hat {D}}(\alpha ){\hat {D}}^{\dagger }(\alpha )={\hat {D}}^{\dagger }(\alpha ){\hat {D}}(\alpha )={\hat {1}}$ , where ${\hat {1}}$ is the identity operator. Since ${\hat {D}}^{\dagger }(\alpha )={\hat {D}}(-\alpha )$ , the hermitian conjugate of the displacement operator can also be interpreted as a displacement of opposite magnitude ( $-\alpha$ ). The effect of applying this operator in a similarity transformation of the ladder operators results in their displacement.

${\hat {D}}^{\dagger }(\alpha ){\hat {a}}{\hat {D}}(\alpha )={\hat {a}}+\alpha$

${\hat {D}}(\alpha ){\hat {a}}{\hat {D}}^{\dagger }(\alpha )={\hat {a}}-\alpha$

The product of two displacement operators is another displacement operator whose total displacement, up to a phase factor, is the sum of the two individual displacements. This can be seen by utilizing the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula.

$e^{\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}e^{\beta {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\beta ^{*}{\hat {a}}}=e^{(\alpha +\beta ){\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-(\beta ^{*}+\alpha ^{*}){\hat {a}}}e^{(\alpha \beta ^{*}-\alpha ^{*}\beta )/2}.$

which shows us that:

${\hat {D}}(\alpha ){\hat {D}}(\beta )=e^{(\alpha \beta ^{*}-\alpha ^{*}\beta )/2}{\hat {D}}(\alpha +\beta )$

When acting on an eigenket, the phase factor $e^{(\alpha \beta ^{*}-\alpha ^{*}\beta )/2}$ appears in each term of the resulting state, which makes it physically irrelevant.

It further leads to the braiding relation

${\hat {D}}(\alpha ){\hat {D}}(\beta )=e^{\alpha \beta ^{*}-\alpha ^{*}\beta }{\hat {D}}(\beta ){\hat {D}}(\alpha )$

02Alternative expressions

The Kermack-McCrea identity (named after William Ogilvy Kermack and William McCrea) gives two alternative ways to express the displacement operator:

${\hat {D}}(\alpha )=e^{-{\frac {1}{2}}|\alpha |^{2}}e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }}e^{-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}$

${\hat {D}}(\alpha )=e^{+{\frac {1}{2}}|\alpha |^{2}}e^{-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }}$

In the Cahill-Glauber $s$ -order representation we can write some useful definitions of these forms of the displacement operator.

${\hat {D}}_{\text{symmetric}}(\alpha )\equiv {\hat {D}}_{0}(\alpha )\equiv {\hat {D}}(\alpha )=e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}$

${\hat {D}}_{\text{normal}}(\alpha )\equiv {\hat {D}}_{+1}(\alpha )\equiv e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }}e^{-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}$

${\hat {D}}_{\text{anti-normal}}(\alpha )\equiv {\hat {D}}_{-1}(\alpha )\equiv e^{-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }}$

With the generalization:

${\hat {D}}_{s}(\alpha )\equiv {\hat {D_{0}}}(\alpha )e^{{\frac {s}{2}}|\alpha |^{2}}=e^{+\alpha {\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*}{\hat {a}}}e^{{\frac {s}{2}}|\alpha |^{2}}$

03Relationship to the Symmetric Delta Function

The displacement operator is the fourier transform of the symmetric delta function

${\hat {T}}_{0}(\alpha )\equiv \pi \delta _{0}^{(2)}({\hat {a}}-\alpha ,{\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*})=\int {\frac {d^{2}\beta }{\pi }}{\hat {D}}_{0}(\beta )e^{\beta ^{*}\alpha -\beta \alpha ^{*}}$

This is extended to the generally ordered delta function:

${\hat {T}}_{s}(\alpha )\equiv \pi \delta _{s}^{(2)}({\hat {a}}-\alpha ,{\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*})=\int {\frac {d^{2}\beta }{\pi }}{\hat {D}}_{s}(\beta )e^{\beta ^{*}\alpha -\beta \alpha ^{*}}$

Example: Normal ordered delta function

${\begin{aligned}{\hat {T}}_{+1}(\alpha )&=\int {\frac {d^{2}\beta }{\pi }}{\hat {D}}_{+1}(\beta )e^{\beta ^{*}\alpha -\beta \alpha ^{*}}\\&=\int {\frac {d^{2}\beta }{\pi }}e^{{\hat {a}}^{\dagger }\beta }e^{-{\hat {a}}\beta ^{*}}e^{\beta ^{*}\alpha -\beta \alpha ^{*}}\\&=\int {\frac {d^{2}\beta }{\pi }}e^{({\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*})\beta }e^{(\alpha -{\hat {a}})\beta ^{*}}\\&={\frac {1}{\pi }}\left[\pi \delta ^{(1)}({\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*})\right]\left[\pi \delta ^{(1)}({\hat {a}}-\alpha )\right]\\&=\pi \delta _{+1}^{(2)}({\hat {a}}-\alpha ,{\hat {a}}^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{*})\end{aligned}}$

04Multimode displacement

The displacement operator can also be generalized to multimode displacement. A multimode creation operator can be defined as

${\hat {A}}_{\psi }^{\dagger }=\int d\mathbf {k} \psi (\mathbf {k} ){\hat {a}}^{\dagger }(\mathbf {k} )$ ,

where $\mathbf {k}$ is the wave vector and its magnitude is related to the frequency $\omega _{\mathbf {k} }$ according to $|\mathbf {k} |=\omega _{\mathbf {k} }/c$ . Using this definition, we can write the multimode displacement operator as

${\hat {D}}_{\psi }(\alpha )=\exp \left(\alpha {\hat {A}}_{\psi }^{\dagger }-\alpha ^{\ast }{\hat {A}}_{\psi }\right)$ ,

and define the multimode coherent state as

$|\alpha _{\psi }\rangle \equiv {\hat {D}}_{\psi }(\alpha )|0\rangle$ .

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Displacement operator”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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