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Sunday, May 3, 2015

Exploring Quantum Physics - Solving the Quantum Harmonic Oscillator using the series method

Disclaimer - this is just an attempt - it never finishes. Blogging this so that I don't forget where I were:
Recall the Quantum Harmonic Oscillator problem as follow:

ˆHψ=Eψ(ˆp22m+12mω2x2)ψ=Eψ(22m2x2+12mω2x2)ψ=Eψ

The so called series method is basically assume ψ as an analytic function, as such, it can be (locally) represented as a power series.

ψ(x)=k=0akxk

Substituting it back to the problem, we have

Eψ=(22m2x2+12mω2x2)ψE(k=0akxk)=(22m2x2+12mω2x2)(k=0akxk)

So we simply match the coefficients.
Ea0=22m(2)a2Ea1=22m(3)(2)a3Eak=22m(k+1)(k+2)ak+2+12mω2x2(ak2)

This apparently lead to the recurrence that we can use to solve for ak, but I am stuck on the next step that I can foresee, how do I know I have found the Gaussian?

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