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classes:2009:fall:phys4101.001:q_a_1113

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Nov 13 (Fri)

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Andromeda 11/11/09 8:41

Is <math> C_0 </math> in equation 4.28 equal to 2?

Ralph 11/12/09 11:06 pm

I think that's the normalization constant (assuming you mean equation 4.82 rather than 4.28?) so in order to find it, you would integrate <math>\int_0^{\infty}|R_{20}®|^2 r^2 dr = 1</math> and solve. I did this with a computer algebra system and got <math> \text{c0}\to \frac{a^4}{-1+a^2}</math>, but I'm not sure if this is right because it seems like <math>a</math> should be able to be 1…

Yuichi

correction to the last part of today lecture.

In a hurry to show how one can get derivatives such as <math>\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial x}</math> without “knowing” how to differentiate arctan, I made a mistake. I said that

<math>\tan\theta=\frac{y}{x}</math> to show you <math>\frac{\partial\theta}{\partial x}</math>, but this should have been for <math>\phi</math>, not <math>\theta</math>, although the main idea is unchanged.

When you differentiate with respect to x, <math>\tan\phi=\frac{y}{x}</math>, the LHS will be <math>\frac{\partial}{\partial x}\tan\phi=\sec^2\phi\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial x}</math> using the chain rule (is this the right terminology?). The RHS will be <math>\frac{\partial}{\partial x}\frac{y}{x} = -\frac{y}{x^2}</math>. From this, one can find out that <math>\sec^2\phi\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial x}=-\frac{y}{x^2}</math>, and subsequently, <math>\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial x}=-\frac{y}{x^2}\cos^2\phi</math>. Usually, in this kind of context, one wants to express everything in the spherical coordinate variables, this will be further modified to give <math>\frac{\partial\phi}{\partial x}=-\frac{r\sin\theta\sin\phi}{(r\sin\theta\cos\phi)^2}\cos^2\phi=-\frac{\sin\phi}{r\sin\theta}</math>.

Using this method, one never needs to know how to differentiate art tangent function!

East End

Sure, “chain rule” is the right terminology. This whole process is known as implicit differentiation.

Super Hot Guy 11/12/09 12:16

If its ok with you guys I'd like to start discussing the practice quiz–

I'll start with question 3 (because it seems a little too simple)

Without giving away the method, the answer I got was 5.155*10^-9 m. How does that compare to your answer?

East End 11/12 8 pm

I think the point is we are supposed to get the Bohr radius. ~5 x 10^-11. About half an angstrom.

Andromeda 11/12 8:33

I have 5.19*10^-11 m as well.

Esquire 11/12 8:38pm

Oy! I also found the Bohr radius. Mate.

Super Hot Guy 11/12/09 12:16

Yup, I must've done something wrong, got 5.3e-11 m.

Dark Helmet 11/03

Half an angstrom here as well

liux0756 11/13

Do we need to calculate the value of the quantity or we can just express it using <math>\hbar, e, m_e, \eps_0</math>?

Spherical Chicken

It seems fair to me that we'd be able to leave it in constants form. The rest of the test is pretty calculator independent… so I wouldn't imagine that if we had the constants correct we'd be penalized for not multiplying the actual values.

Andromeda 11/12 2:10

i dont know what im doing wrong but i get 0 for the stationary states in question 1 :( and of course that cant be right! i have energies to be (5+/-√5)ε/2. Are my energy values wrong??

Andromeda 11/12 5:20

im still having trouble with this, this is what i have done: <math> E_1= (5+sqrt5)/2 </math>and <math>E_2= (5-sqrt5)/2 </math> and using <math> H\psi=E_n\psi </math> i want to find the stationary states which is described by the vector [x,y]. here is my equations for <math>E_2= (5-sqrt5)/2 </math>

<math/> \large\begin{eqnarray*} 2x+iy=x(5-sqrt5)/2\\-ix+3y=y(5-sqrt5)/2\end{eqnarray*}</math>

and so this system of equation gives x=y=0. and the other case <math>E_1= (5+sqrt5)/2 </math>

<math/> \large\begin{eqnarray*} 2x+iy=x(5+sqrt5)/2\\-ix+3y=y(5+sqrt5)/2\end{eqnarray*}</math>

also gives x=y=0. i dont know if im solving these systems wrong or if my equations are wrong ?!?!

East End and Ralph 11/12 7:45

We got the same energies. <math>E = \frac{5 \pm \sqrt{5}}{2} \epsilon</math>. This was confirmed with Mathematica. Mathematica also gave <math>\left( -\frac{1 \pm \sqrt{5}}{2} i, \ 1 \right)</math> as the eigenvectors (states).

We also got 0 and 0 when we tried to solve, so in hindsight, looking at the Mathematica solution, we realized that you could simply take one of the relations in the system, set y to 1, and solve for x. (Twice, once for each energy/eigenvalue. Either that or maybe do it for both relations in the system, but we haven't tried that and don't know if it would work.)

Mercury 11/12/2009 10:05 pm

I also got the same energies and eigenvectors. What I did was take one equation (in this case <math/>2x+iy=x(5-sqrt5)/2</math> and solved for y in terms of x.

joh04684 11/12/09

Yeah, that's what I ended up getting for my energies too

Yuichi

Those equations actually lead to the same relation between “x” and “y.” That's why you can take one or the other equation to get the right relation between them. If they are NOT redundant, then the only answer will be x=y=0. To avoid this result, we required that the determinant <math>det(H-\lambda I)=0</math>. Since the equation to obtain the eigenvector, <math>v=\begin{bmatrix}x
y \end{bmatrix}</math> is given by <math>(H-\lambda I)v=0</math>, if the determinant is NOT zero, the matrix, <math>det(H-\lambda I)=0</math> has an inverse matrix, M. By applying M from the left, <math>M(H-\lambda I)v=M*0</math>. Since the two matrices on the LHS are inverse of each other, their product is an identity matrix, I. The RHS is zero. Then you will get <math>v=0</math>.

Hydra 9pm

I got the same for my energies too, but confused as to how to determine the eigenstates. Has anybody worked on #4 yet?

Andromeda 11/12 9:54

I worked it out twice and got different answers each time but i am more confident on my second answer which is 33a^2

Daniel Faraday 11/12 9:57

So speaking of #4, do you just do the integral of psi squared times x^2 over all space, (converting x^2 to spherical coords and of course using the differential volume element) and crunch out a result? Is that the right approach?

poit0009 11/12 10:10 PM

I believe you are right, Daniel. It wouldn't make sense to do an integral over only one of the variables.

liux0756 11/13

I got my answer which is 12a^2, but I am not confident~~

Esquire 11/12/09 AD (Information Age) 8:15pm

Can a multidimensional hermitian operator be expressed as a non-square matrix? Such as a 3×27 matrix?

Spherical Harmonic Star date 63241.5

er.. chicken…. I believe that in fact the operator has to be square – the rules of matrix multiplication say that a 1×4 * 4×4 give 1×4. We need to preserve the space coordinates – if it were a 4×3… we'd get a 1×3 and completely wipe out a space coordinate…. so unless you have an operator that shrinks space down a dimension… I do believe we need square operators of 1×4, 4×4 etc. or… maybe there's a space creating operator… 4×27 … String theory'd be happy.

Esquire (Age of Aquarius) 11/12/09

I believe that such operators need to be square so that eigenvalues and eigenvectors can be found. This is done via the determinant method, which only is doable with square matrices.

joh04684 11/12/09

Yup I believe you guys have the right idea, that's what what my intuition is telling me too

Esquire (Age of Ihciuy) 11/12/09

Wait a sec. I didn't post on this day! Something foul is afoot!

Spherical Chicken Star date 63241.5

jIH quadic chugh 'iHl DuH Daq ghaj ani jalig vetlh 'oH dilk Qid hakliq — jatlh dilken string theory.

Esquire (age of the borg)

Resistance is futile.

joh04684 11/12/09

The force is strong with this one

Spherical Chicken Star date 63241.5

so live long and prosper.

joh04684 11/12/09

And to answer your question, hgrah kurk der kilsk.

Dark Helmet 11/13/09

Am i not nerdy enough to get this joke?

Ralph 11/13/09 (1258092787)

clearly it's that you just don't know enough quantum mechanics so good luck on the exam tomorrow

Spherical Chicken stardate 63381.4

Ghaj SoH quid Qoyta' vo' Hov Trek??? nuq kon vo' scientist 'oH SoH

Super Hot Guy date

Has anybody got a clue on #2?

Spherical Chicken

yup

poit0009 11/12 10:03PM

Converting the x and y parts of the operator are easy, because we have the spherical transformations. We can find the momentum parts of the operator using the information given by our professor on how to find the derivatives of the spherical variables. This is a website I also found that helped: http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/%3Chttp://planetmath.org/?method=l2h&from=collab&id=76&op=getobj

Good luck.

Ralph 10 am 11/13

This is very much like the homework problem on the last homework. It seems that <math>Q</math> is the <math>z</math> component of the angular momentum operator.


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