Symmetrical Coupling of Three Angular Momenta

Abstract

We introduce here a new coupling scheme for three angular momenta. It relies on the properties of an operator which depends ``democratically'' upon the three individual angular momenta; this is in fact their mixed product. This operator, the total angular momentum and one of its components form a complete set of commuting observables. In the case where the three individual angular momenta are equal, the eigenstates of this set possess remarkable symmetry properties with respect to the permutation group S3.