Bound-State Solutions of the Schrödinger Equation by Numerical Integration
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This Demonstration shows the mathematical solution of the time-independent Schrödinger equation for four potentials, the harmonic oscillator , the V-shaped potential , the anharmonic oscillator , and a square-well potential. The wavefunction is arbitrarily fixed at . You can obtain linearly independent solutions by numerical integration for different values of the derivative and the energy level . The vertical dashed lines indicate the locations of the classical turning points.
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Contributed by: Andrés Santos
(December 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
This Demonstration is inspired by section 5.7 of [1].
Snapshot 1: Harmonic oscillator with . The particular solution with behaves well in the limit as but not in the limit as . Therefore, is not an eigenvalue.
Snapshot 2: Harmonic oscillator with . The particular solution with behaves well in the limit as but not in the limit as . Therefore, is not an eigenvalue.
Snapshot 3: Harmonic oscillator with . The particular solution with behaves well in both limits as and . Therefore, is an eigenvalue (first excited state).
Snapshot 4: V-shaped potential with . The particular solution with behaves well in both limits as and . Therefore, is an eigenvalue (ground state).
Snapshot 5: V-shaped potential with . The particular solution with behaves well in both limits as and . Therefore, is an eigenvalue (fourth excited state).
Reference
[1] R. Eisberg and R. Resnick, Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, New York: Wiley, 1985.
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