Chapter 8: Q11P (page 335)
Use the WKB approximation to find the allowed energies of the general power-law potential:
where v is a positive number. Check your result for the case v=2 .
Short Answer
The energy of the harmonic oscillator is,
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Chapter 8: Q11P (page 335)
Use the WKB approximation to find the allowed energies of the general power-law potential:
where v is a positive number. Check your result for the case v=2 .
The energy of the harmonic oscillator is,
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Question:
An illuminating alternative derivation of the WKB formula (Equation) is based on an expansion in powers of. Motivated by the free particle wave function ,, we write
Wheref(x)is some complex function. (Note that there is no loss of generality here-any nonzero function can be written in this way.)
(a) Put this into Schrödinger's equation (in the form of Equation8.1), and show that
.
(b) Write f(x)as a power series in:
And, collecting like powers of, show that
(c) Solve forand, and show that-to first order inyou recover Equation8.10.
Use the WKB approximation in the form
to estimate the bound state energies for hydrogen. Don't forget the centrifugal term in the effective potential (Equation ). The following integral may help:
Note that you recover the Bohr levels when
Derive the connection formulas at a downward-sloping turning point, and confirm equation8.50.
Consider the quantum mechanical analog to the classical problem of a ball (mass m) bouncing elastically on the floor.
(a) What is the potential energy, as a function of height x above the floor? (For negative x, the potential is infinite x - the ball can't get there at all.)
(b) Solve the Schrödinger equation for this potential, expressing your answer in terms of the appropriate Airy function (note that Bi(z) blows up for large z, and must therefore be rejected). Don’t bother to normalize .
(c) Using and , find the first four allowed energies, in joules, correct to three significant digits. Hint: See Milton Abramowitz and Irene A. Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions, Dover, New York (1970), page 478; the notation is defined on page 450.
(d) What is the ground state energy, in ,eV of an electron in this gravitational field? How high off the ground is this electron, on the average? Hint: Use the virial theorem to determine .
Analyze the bouncing ball (Problem 8.5) using the WKB approximation.
(a) Find the allowed energies, , in terms of , and .
(b) Now put in the particular values given in Problem8.5 (c), and compare the WKB approximation to the first four energies with the "exact" results.
(c) About how large would the quantum number n have to be to give the ball an average height of, say, 1 meter above the ground?
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