Cody Arceneaux Quantum Mechanics II The Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation is a method of finding approximate solutions of linear, second order

differential equations. It was originally developed by Liouville and Green, and is sometimes referred to as the Liouville-Green (LG) approximation. Also, because of the work by Jeffereys before Wentzel, Kramers, and Brillouin, it is sometimes referred to as the WKBJ or the JWKB approximation. In quantum mechanics, the WKB approximation is used to solve the Schrodinger equation. The time-dependent version of the Schrodinger equation is ). This is one of the more general problems that would need to be solved. A more simplified explanation can be used to get the general idea before moving on to a more generalized case. The explanation of the WKB approximation in Shankar and Griffiths begins with a particle in one-dimension of energy E in a constant potential V. For the sake of simplicity, let p = . The wavefunction has a wavelength of = <<1), the wavefunction from the

2/p. If the potential instead changes slowly as V(x) (so that initial position (x0) to the final position (x) becomes

The previous is a quick and dirty derivation. A more formal derivation can start with * Once again, for simplicity, let p(x) = ( ( )+ .

. Then, use as a wavefunction )

and insert this into the above equation to get ( ) .

Cody Arceneaux Quantum Mechanics II (x) needs to be expanded into a power series for (x) =
0

2+ .

For the WKB approximation, terms of order 2 or higher will be discarded. The expansion is placed into the above equation, and (after taking derivatives and performing some algebra) it ends up as 0 = p(x). Taking the integral of this and placing it back into wavefunction results in which is what was derived with the less formal method.