UC Santa Cruz

Physics 115
Spring 2017

Final Exam
Due online Wednesday, June 14 at 11:59 PM

Because this is the final exam for the course, I need to see your own work.
No collaboration with other students is allowed.
You may use your notes, books, and online references to answer the 4 problems.

1. Electrostatic Potential

A square region in the x, y plane is painted with a uniform charge density ρ. (For
simplicity, let’s take ρ = 4πe0 .) The square region covers −1 ≤ x < 1 and −1 ≤ y <
1.
The electrostatic potential at an arbitrary point x p , y p outside the square region is
given by
Z 1 Z 1
ρ dx dy
Φ( x p , y p ) = q
4πe0 −1 −1 ( x − x )2 + (y − y )2
p p

Use a two-dimensional integration algorithm of your choice to evaluate Φ( x p , y p )

for a grid of points with x = 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and y = 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. Adjust your integration
scheme to achieve 6 significant figures of accuracy in the results.

2. Differential equations

The value of a potential φ on a 1-D interval is given by the following differential

equation and boundary conditions.
 2
d φ dφ
 dx2 = 4 dx − 10φ( x ) + 10x

φ (0) = 0

φ(1) = 200


(a) Calculate the value of φ( x ) for the points in the interval [0, 1]. Adjust your
algorithm so that the tolerance is 10−4 .
(b) Adopt the Successive Over-Relaxation technique to speed up the convergence.

1
3. Quantum energies

Consider a particle in the double well potential:

( h  i
V0 4πx
2 1 − cos L , | x | ≤ L/2
V (x)
0, | x | > L/2
with L = 2.
Work in units with h̄ = m = 1, and use V0 = −50.

(a) Plot V ( x ).
(b) Use the shooting method to determine the three lowest energy levels and plot
the corresponding normalized wavefunctions.

4. Vibrating String

Even though the equation of a vibrating string (with length L, linear mass density
µ( x ), and tension T) is a partial differential equation

∂2 u( x, t) T ∂2 u( x, t)
=
∂t2 µ( x ) ∂x2

the use of a solution u( x, t) = y( x )τ (t) allows us to separate the equation into a

spatial side and a temporal side:

1 T d2 y 1 d2 τ
=
y( x ) µ( x ) dx2 τ (t) dt2

The separation constant is taken to be −ω 2 .

(a) Use the shooting method with the boundary conditions (y( x ) = 0 on the ends
of the string) to find the lowest frequency of the string and plot the eigenfunc-
tion (shape). Take L = 1 m, m = 0.954 g, and T = 1000 N. Assume a constant
linear mass density µ0 for this part.
(b) Repeat the shooting method with a non-uniform µ( x ) = 0.954 g/m + x − L2 0.5 g/m2 .

Plot this eigenfunction (shape) and compare with the previous part.