Paper 3, Section II, E

Principles of Quantum Mechanics | Part II, 2013

A particle moves in one dimension in an infinite square-well potential V(x)=0V(x)=0 for x<a|x|<a and \infty for x>a|x|>a. Find the energy eigenstates. Show that the energy eigenvalues are given by En=E1n2E_{n}=E_{1} n^{2} for integer nn, where E1E_{1} is a constant which you should find.

The system is perturbed by the potential δV=ϵx/a\delta V=\epsilon x / a. Show that the energy of the nth n^{\text {th }}level EnE_{n} remains unchanged to first order in ϵ\epsilon. Show that the ground-state wavefunction is

ψ1(x)=1a[cosπx2a+Dϵπ2E1n=2,4,(1)AnnB(n21)Csinnπx2a+O(ϵ2)]\psi_{1}(x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{a}}\left[\cos \frac{\pi x}{2 a}+\frac{D \epsilon}{\pi^{2} E_{1}} \sum_{n=2,4, \ldots}(-1)^{A n} \frac{n^{B}}{\left(n^{2}-1\right)^{C}} \sin \frac{n \pi x}{2 a}+\mathcal{O}\left(\epsilon^{2}\right)\right]

where A,B,CA, B, C and DD are numerical constants which you should find. Briefly comment on the conservation of parity in the unperturbed and perturbed systems.

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