A self-adjoint decomposition of the radial momentum operator

Abstract

With acceptance of the Dirac's observation that the canonical quantization entails using Cartesian coordinates, we examine the operator erPr rather than Pr itself and demonstrate that there is a decomposition of erPr into a difference of two self-adjoint but noncommutative operators, in which one is the total momentum and another is the transverse one. This study renders the operator Pr indirectly measurable and physically meaningful, offering an explanation of why the mean value of Pr over a quantum mechanical state makes sense and supporting Dirac's claim that Pr "is real and is the true momentum conjugate to r".