Properties of Time Reversal Operation in Quantum Mechanics

complex numbershilbert-spaceoperatorsquantum mechanicstime-reversal-symmetry

During a course of mine time-reversal symmetry was introduced as an anti-linear operator. One property the lecturer pointed out is that
\begin{equation}
\langle\phi| A\psi\rangle \neq \langle A^\dagger \phi |\psi \rangle
\end{equation}

but rather we have
\begin{equation}
\langle\phi| A\psi\rangle = \langle \psi | A^\dagger \phi \rangle = \langle A^\dagger \phi | \psi \rangle^*.
\end{equation}

I understand that time-reversal involves a complex conjugation, but I don't understand what makes the above equalities true.

The question is: what property of time-reversal itself makes the above hold. Is it only complex conjugation or is there anything else needed for the above to be true?

Best Answer

The equation you listed is the definition of the Hermitian conjugate of an antilinear map. It is true because it is defined that way.

However, I am guessing you are curious about why there must be this extra complex conjugation as compared to the case with linear operators. Suppose we tried to define Hermitian conjugation for antilinear $A$ as we do for linear operators.

$$ \langle\phi| A \psi\rangle = \langle A \phi|\psi\rangle $$

We will find it is not possible to do this in general. To see this, let $\lambda \in \mathbb{C}$ and consider the following manipulations

\begin{align} \begin{aligned} \langle\phi|A\lambda\psi\rangle &= \lambda^* \langle\phi|A\psi\rangle \\ &= \langle\lambda\phi|A\psi\rangle \\ &= \langle A^\dagger \lambda \phi | \psi\rangle \\ &= \langle \lambda^* A^\dagger\phi|\psi\rangle \\ &= \lambda \langle A^\dagger\phi|\psi\rangle \\ &= \lambda \langle \phi|A\psi\rangle \end{aligned} \end{align}

Comparing the first and last line on the right hand side, we see that if $\lambda \neq \lambda^*$, $\langle\phi|A\psi\rangle = 0$. Since this holds for any two states $\phi, \psi$, only $A = 0$ fits the bill! We clearly want other operators besides zero to have Hermitian conjugates. The true definition for antilinear operators that you showed above succeeds in that.