Quantum Mechanics – How to Write Completeness of Wavefunctions Without Bra-Ket Notation?

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In the quantum textbook I'm currently working from, the completeness relation is written as:

$$
\sum_i |\psi_i \rangle \langle \psi_i| = \mathbb{1}.
$$

But this seems to specifically require knowledge of individual bra and ket vectors. I know wavefunctions are supposed to satisfy both orthogonal and completeness relations, but I thought wavefunctions were written as coefficients of vectors $ \langle x | p \rangle = \psi(x) $ rather than the vectors themselves. Is there a way of writing the completeness relations if we're only given wavefunctions rather than bra or ket vectors? For example, the orthgonal relation for normalized wavefunction $ \psi_i $ and $ \psi_j $ is:

$$
\int_{-\infty}^\infty \psi^*_i(x) \psi_j(x) dx = \delta_{ij}.
$$

But I'm unsure of the equivalent for the completeness relation. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Best Answer

One way you can show the completeness relation without bra-ket notation is just $$\sum_{i} \langle \psi_i , v \rangle \psi_i = v \qquad \forall v\in\mathcal{H},$$ where $\mathcal{H}$ is the Hilbert space in question, and $\langle \cdot,\cdot\rangle$ is the corresponding inner product.

Or you can say that the linear operator $$\begin{cases} T:\mathcal{H} \rightarrow \mathcal{H}\\[7pt] v \mapsto T(v)=\sum_{i} \langle \psi_i , v \rangle \psi_i\end{cases} $$ is the identity operator $T = 1\!\!1$.

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