Dynamical Pictures of Quantum

Mechanics
• Historical context
• Understanding with help of a flow Analogue
• Relation in two pictures
• Other notable representations
The historical context
Schrodinger and Heisenberg
incorporated the time evolution of a
physical system in two different
ways in their respective theories.
While in the Schrodinger Picture the
time dependence was entirely
displayed in the state vector,
Heisenberg showed the operators
and eigenbasis to be evolving with
time.
Explaining with a physical analogue
The Schrodinger
picture and the
Heisenberg picture
are similar to the
Eulerian and
Lagrangian flow
specifications. The
observer frame here
does the work of
coordinates while the
state of fluid is the
state vector.
Relation in two pictures

The interconversion of the state vector from one picture to the other
picture can be seen as a generalised rotation of Hilbert space. We can
transfer time dependence from state vector to operators and vice versa
using unitary transformations.
Other notable dynamical pictures

• Dirac Picture
The Dirac picture incorporates time dependence in both, the operators
as well as the state vector. It is particularly useful for problems where
explicitly time dependent interaction terms are present in the
Hamiltonian.