《Lesson5ParticleInABox》.pdf

Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers David Miller The particle in a box The particle in a box Linearity and normalization Linearity and Schrödinger’s equation We see that Schrödinger’s equation is linear  2 2  V E    r       2m  The wavefunction  appears only in first order there are no second or higher order terms 2 3 such as  or  So, if  is a solution, so also is a this just corresponds to multiplying both sides by the constant a Normalization of the wavefunction Born postulated the probability P r of finding a particle   2 near a point r is  r   Specifically let us define P r as a   “probability density” For some very small (infinitesimal) 3 volume d r around r the probability of finding the particle in that volume is 3 P r d r   Normalization of the wavefunction The sum of all such probabilities should be 1 So 3 P r d r 1    2 Can we choose r so that we can use  r     as the prob