Compatibility of Observables

If two Observable are compatible, then they can be measured simultaneously with one basic measurement. This means that observing one doesn’t affect the other.

Two Operator A^\hat{A} and B^\hat{B} are compatible if and only if they commute, i.e. [A^,B^]=0[\hat{A},\hat{B}]=0.

A^,B^are compatible[A^,B^]=0\hat{A},\hat{B}\quad\text{are compatible}\quad\Leftrightarrow\quad[\hat{A},\hat{B}]=0

Proof

A^B^=n,mAnBmϕnϕnϕmϕm\Rightarrow\hat{A}\hat{B}=\sum_{n,m}A_nB_m\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle\left\langle \phi_n|\phi_m \right\rangle\left\langle \phi_m \right\rvert\\ =nAnBnϕnϕn=B^A^=\sum_nA_nB_n\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle\left\langle \phi_n \right\rvert=\hat{B}\hat{A}\\ A^ϕn=Anϕn\Leftarrow\hat{A}\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle=A_n\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle\\ A^B^ϕn=B^A^ϕn=AnB^ϕn\hat{A}\hat{B}\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle=\hat{B}\hat{A}\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle=A_n\hat{B}\left\lvert \phi_n \right\rangle

Example