P2214 Homework 14 solutions Spring 2011

1 Wall penetration in a nite square well

For the nite square well, this penetration distance is simply the decay length of the wave-
function outside the well, since the boundary of the well serves as the classical turning point and
the wavefunction outside the well is already proportional to e
x
. So, we immediately get that
=
1
, as mentioned in the prompt.
The rest is plugging the necessary numbers into the formula given. Dont forget to convert the
energies to our SI unit of joules if you use a mass in kilograms.
(a) = 73.7 pm
(b) = 1.45 fm
Note that these penetration distances are a bit smaller than the size of an atom and the size
of a nucleus, respectively. The nite square well in this problem is being used as a very crude
approximation for the atomic and nuclear potentials.
2 Boundary conditions
Since were looking at bound states (E < U
0
) of the nite potential well and not continuum
states (E > U
0
), we must make sure that the wavefunction goes to zero as x . Before
applying the boundary conditions at x = 0 and x = L, the wavefunction is
(x) =
_

_
Ce
x
x 0,
Acos(kx) +Bsin(kx) 0 x L,
De
x
x L
with k =

2mE
h
and =

2m(U
0
E)
h
.
(a) By requiring that be continuous everywhere, we get
C = A
Acos(kL) +Bsin(kL) = De
L
by applying this to x = 0 and x = L, respectively.
(b) By requiring that d/dx be continuous everywhere, we get
C = kB
kAsin(kL) +kBcos(kL) = De
L
by applying this to x = 0 and x = L, respectively.
By combining these four equations with the requirement that the bound-state wavefunctions
normalize to 1 (
_

|(x)| dx = 1), we have ve equations and ve unknowns (A, B, C, D, and the

allowed energies E) and we can solve for all of the allowed energies and wavefunctions for bound
states in the system.
1
3 Quantum harmonic oscillators
(a) As our formula for the ground state energy of a quantum harmonic oscillator is
1
2
h, we
should be searching for an angular frequency for this system. You can either remember from Phys
1112 that a simple pendulum has angular frequency
_
g/L, or you can rederive it yourself (free-
body diagram and small angle approximation give you a second-order dierential equation in the
angle that the string makes with the vertical).
Anyway, we have
1
2
h
_
g
L
= k
B
T = L = g
_
2k
B
T
h
_
2
= 1.43 am,
which is not feasible since an attometer (10
18
m) is much smaller than an atomic nucleus.
(b) They give us the angular frequency here, so
1
2
h

Et
2
L
4
= k
B
T = L =
_
Et
2
(
2k
B
T
h
)
2
_
1/4
= 1.84 m,
which is a feasible length.
4 Hydrogen and Hydrogen-like atoms
(a) Using the formula for the de Broglie wavelength of an electron,
2r = n = n
h
p
= n
h
mv
= mvr = nh.
(b) The Coulomb force provides the centripetal force required to keep the electron in uniform
circular motion around the proton in the Bohr model, so
e
2
4
0
r
2
n
=
mv
2
n
r
n
for the allowed orbital radii and velocities. Combining this with the equation from part (a) gives
us two equations and two unknowns (r
n
and v
n
), so we can solve:
r
n
=
4
0
h
2
me
2
n
2
v
n
=
e
2
4
0
h
1
n
.
The quantity that multiplies the n
2
in the expression for the allowed orbital radii is known as the
Bohr radius a
0
= 0.529

A.
(c) Since this is a classical model of the atom, the allowed energies of the electron are simply
the allowed sums of potential and kinetic energies of the electron, given the allowed orbitals from
2
part (b).
E
n
=
e
2
4
0
r
n
+
1
2
mv
2
n
=
me
4
16
2

2
0
h
2
n
2
+
me
4
32
2

2
0
h
2
n
2
=
me
4
32
2

2
0
h
2
1
n
2
.
You may recognize the expression that multiplies the 1/n
2
as the ground state energy of the
hydrogen atom, E
1
= 13.6 eV.
(d) The electron is constrained to the allowed orbitals {r
n
}. If we do not know which orbital
the electron is in, the probability density function looks like
1 4 9
r
a
0
PDFr
If we do know which orbital the electron is in say, the n = 1 orbital, then our knowledge of
the electrons position is denite and the PDF is a single spike at r = r
1
= a
0
. (Formally, this sort
of distribution is known as a Dirac delta function.)
(e) We insert the 1s wavefunction,
1s
= Ae
r/a
0
, into the time-independent Schrodinger
equation:
_

h
2
2m
_
2
r
d
dr
+
d
2
dr
2
_

e
2
4
0
r
_
Ae
r/a
0
= E
1s
Ae
r/a
0
_

h
2
2m
_
2
r
_
1
a
0
_
+
_
1
a
2
0
__

e
2
4
0
r
_
Ae
r/a
0
= E
1s
Ae
r/a
0
_
h
2
ma
0

e
2
4
0
_
1
r

1s

_
E
1s
+
h
2
2ma
2
0
_

1s
= 0
Each of these terms must cancel to zero independently. From the rst term,
a
0
=
4
0
h
2
me
2
,
3
which is the Bohr radius we had derived from the classical Bohr model in part (b)! Also, from the
second term, we get the energy of the 1s state,
E
1
=
h
2
2ma
2
0
=
me
4
32
2

2
0
h
2
,
which also turns out to be the energy of the n = 1 state in the Bohr model from part (c)!
(f ) Indeed.
(g) After normalizing, we can plot the radial probability density as a function of r/a
0
:
2 4 6 8 10
r
a
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
a
0
PDFra
0

It very much looks like the maximum is at r/a

0
= 1, or r = a
0
, but we can use our knowledge
of calculus to check where the maximum is:
0 =
d
dr
(4r
2
||
2
)|
r=rmax
= 2r
max
e
2rmax/a
0

2r
2
max
a
0
e
2rmax/a
0
= 1
r
max
a
0
= r
max
= a
0
.
(h) Replacing e
2
by Ze
2
in the Bohr model gives us
E
n
= Z
2
me
4
32
2

2
0
h
2
1
n
2
, r
n
=
1
Z
4
0
h
me
2
n
2
, v
n
= Z
e
2
4
0
h
1
n
.
For Z = 92, E
1
= 115 keV, r
1
= 0.575 pm, and v
1
= 2.01 10
8
m/s, which is 2/3 the speed of
light. The electron will be moving at relativistic speeds, so relativistic corrections must be taken
into account.
4
5 Reection and transmission of matter waves by a potential step
Solving the TISE for this system results in the following wavefunction:
(x) =
_
Ae
ik
1
x
+Be
ik
1
x
x 0,
Ce
ik
2
x
+De
ik
2
x
x 0
where k
1
=

2mE
h
and k
2
=

2m(EU
0
)
h
. Since this is a continuum state (the electron is not bound
to a potential well), these four terms correspond to a right-moving wave in the x 0 region, a
left-moving wave in the x 0 region, a right-moving wave in the x 0 region, and a left-moving
wave in the x 0 region. It may be easier to see this if I append the time-dependent portion of
the wavefunction, e
it
where = E/h, which is the same in all cases:
(x, t) =
_
Ae
i(k
1
xt)
+Be
i(k
1
xt)
x 0,
Ce
i(k
2
xt)
+De
i(k
2
xt)
x 0.
Now it is clearer that these are right- and left-moving waves. In this problem, we have electron
waves moving to the right from x < 0, so we should expect a reected wave moving to the left and
a transmitted wave moving to the right. However, there will be no wave moving to the left in the
x > 0 region, so D = 0.
We can impose boundary conditions at x = 0, requiring that and d/dx are continuous there:
A+B = C ik
1
(AB) = ik
2
C.
Since we have two equations and three unknowns, we can nd B and C in terms of A. Solving,
B =
k
1
k
2
k
1
+k
2
A C = A+B =
2k
1
k
1
+k
2
.
(a) The ratio of the wavenumbers is
k
2
k
1
=
_
E U
0
E
=
_
1
U
0
E
.
(b) The ratio between the reected and incident wave amplitudes is
r =
B
A
=
k
1
k
2
k
1
+k
2
.
(c) The ratio between the transmitted and incident wave amplitudes is
t =
C
A
=
2k
1
k
1
+k
2
.
(d) The transmission probability is
T =
k
2
k
1
|t|
2
=
4k
1
k
2
(k
1
+k
2
)
2
.
5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
1U
0
E
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
T
(e) These expressions should be familiar, because they are very similar to ones weve encoun-
tered for classical and EM waves meeting an interface between dierent media. However, in this
case, our quantum probability waves are meeting an interface between dierent potential energies.
As the energy of the incident wave increases, 1 U
0
/E gets closer to 1 and the particle is more
likely to be found on the other side of the interface (the particle is more likely to be transmitted).
If we lower the energy towards U
0
, the transmission probability goes to zero.
The strange thing, though, is when our electron waves do not have enough energy to classically
jump over the barrier. E < U
0
and 1 U
0
/E < 0 then, and the behavior of the transmitted wave
changes. Now, instead of a sinusoidal traveling wave in the x > 0 region, we have an exponential
decay - an evanescent wave, mathematically similar to the total internal reection we found with
EM waves.
6 Tunneling through a barrier
(a) Plug and chug. = 1.356 10
10
m
1
and G = 7/4, so
L (nm) T
10 2.90 10
118
5 2.25 10
59
2 4.86 10
24
1 2.92 10
12
0.5 2.26 10
6
As you can see, the large value of has made the transmission probability (which causes leakage
of current) very, very small. In fact, in order to plot T(L), I had to plot the logarithm (base 10) of
the value just so Mathematica wouldnt underow:
6
2 4 6 8 10
L nm
120
100
80
60
40
20
log
10
T
(b) If I let x = U
0
/E, then
G =
16
x
_
1
1
x
_
=
_
2mE(x 1)
h
.
x T
1.1 2.70 10
2
1.5 5.93 10
4
2 1.82 10
5
4 1.67 10
9
8 1.28 10
14
100 1.10 10
54
20 40 60 80 100
U
0
E
50
40
30
20
10
log
10
T
7