Chapter 2: Q16P (page 57)
Use the recursion formula (Equation to work out and Invoke the convention that the coefficient of the highest power of role="math" localid="1657778520591" is to fix the overall constant.
Short Answer
The values are and
Chapter 2: Q16P (page 57)
Use the recursion formula (Equation to work out and Invoke the convention that the coefficient of the highest power of role="math" localid="1657778520591" is to fix the overall constant.
The values are and
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Get started for freeThis is a strictly qualitative problem-no calculations allowed! Consider the "double square well" potential (Figure 2.21). Suppose the depth and the width a are fixed, and large enough so that several bound states occur.
(a) Sketch the ground state wave function and the first excited state localid="1658211858701" (i) for the case b = 0 (ii) forand (iii) for
(b) Qualitatively, how do the corresponding energiesand vary, as b goes from 0 to ? Sketch and on the same graph.
(c) The double well is a very primitive one-dimensional model for the potential experienced by an electron in a diatomic molecule (the two wells represent the attractive force of the nuclei). If the nuclei are free to move, they will adopt the configuration of minimum energy. In view of your conclusions in (b), does the electron tend to draw the nuclei together, or push them apart? (Of course, there is also the internuclear repulsion to consider, but that's a separate problem.)
A particle in the infinite square well has the initial wave function
(a) Sketch , and determine the constant A
(b) Find
(c) What is the probability that a measurement of the energy would yield the value ?
(d) Find the expectation value of the energy.
The gaussian wave packet. A free particle has the initial wave function
whereand are constants ( is real and positive).
(a) Normalize
(b) Find . Hint: Integrals of the form
Can be handled by “completing the square”: Let, and note that. Answer:
localid="1658297483210"
(c) Find . Express your answer in terms of the quantity
localid="1658297497509"
Sketchlocalid="1658124147567" (as a function of ) at , and again for some very large . Qualitatively, what happens to , as time goes on?
(d) Find and . Partial answer:localid="1658297458579" , but it may take some algebra to reduce it to this simple form.
(e) Does the uncertainty principle hold? At what time does the system come
closest to the uncertainty limit?
In Problem 2.21 you analyzed the stationary gaussian free particle wave packet. Now solve the same problem for the traveling gaussian wave packet, starting with the initial wave function.
This problem is designed to guide you through a “proof” of Plancherel’s theorem, by starting with the theory of ordinary Fourier series on a finite interval, and allowing that interval to expand to infinity.
(a) Dirichlet’s theorem says that “any” function f(x) on the interval can be expanded as a Fourier series:
Show that this can be written equivalently as
.
What is , in terms of and ?
(b) Show (by appropriate modification of Fourier’s trick) that
(c) Eliminate n and in favor of the new variables . Show that (a) and (b) now become
.
where is the increment in k from one n to the next.
(d) Take the limit to obtain Plancherel’s theorem. Comment: In view of their quite different origins, it is surprising (and delightful) that the two formulas—one for F(k) in terms of f(x), the other for f(x) terms of F(k) —have such a similar structure in the limit .
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