2013/09/24 by Yen Lee Loh, Loh, Yen Lee, Monica Kim +1
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics and Python Applications #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics Education (physics.ed-ph) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #physics.ed-ph #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1309.6346
12 pages, 5 figures; submitted to Am. J. Phys
arxiv created 2013/09/24 · openalex publication_date 2013/09/24 · arxiv updated 2013/09/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Orbital angular momentum eigenfunctions are readily understood in terms of spherical harmonic wavefunctions. However, the quantum mechanical phenomenon of spin is often said to be mysterious and hard to visualize, with no classical analogue. Many textbooks give a heuristic and somewhat unsatisfying picture of a precessing spin vector. Here we advocate for the "spin wavefunction" in the spin coherent state representation as a striking, elegant, and mathematically meaningful visual tool. We also demonstrate that cartographic projections such as the Hammer projection are useful for visualizing wavefunctions defined on spherical surfaces.