Additional Practice Midterm Problems

TA: Jeff Schueler

February 23, 2016

1. Angular Momentum Fun (Note: Part (a) is optional. The rest of the problem is important to your understanding of angular momentum. Part (a) shows a nice way to play around with spherical harmonics,
so if you dont feel like working through the algrabra, take the result as given and begin with part (b).):
Consider the combined orbital and spin state
N (x iy +
=

1 z)
2


, where s =


1
.
1

(a) Show that can be re-written as

r
=N

8 1
Y +
3 1

2 0
Y
3 1

!
S

(1)

p
and Y10 =
(It will be useful to consider that in cartesian coordinates Y11 = 3/(8) xiy
r
p
3/(4) zr ).
(b) What are the possible values of a measurement of Lz of this system and their corresponding
probabilities?
(c) What are the possible values of a measurement of L2 for this system and their corresponding
probabilities?
(d) What are the possible values of a measurement of S 2 for this system and their corresponding
probabilities?
(e) What are the possible values of a measurement of Sx for this system and their corresponding
probabilities?
(f) What are the possible values of a measurement of Sz for this system and their corresponding
probabilities?
2. Consider an isotropic 2D simple harmonic oscillator with unperturbed Hamiltonian
H0 =

Py2
Px2
1
+
+ m 2 (X 2 + Y 2 ).
2m 2m 2

It can be shown that for the three lowest lying distinct energy levels of H0 :
0
E00
= ~

0
E20

0
E10
0
E02

=
=

0
E01
0
E11

(ground state, no degeneracy)

= 2~

(1st excited state, two-fold degeneracy)

= 3~

(2nd excited state, three-fold degeneracy.)

(a) Suppose a perturbation H 0 = m 2 xy is added to the system.

i. Find the first order
to
the ground state
of this system.


p m correction
m 2
m 2
0
(Note: g.s. =
~ exp 2~ x exp 2~ y ).
ii. It can be shown that (to first order) the Hamiltonian of the first excited state of this system
can be written as


~ 0 1
0
H =
.
1 0
2
Using degenerate perturbation theory, determine the first order energy corrections to the first
excited state of this system. What happens to the degeneracy? How do you know?
1

iii. Determine the good linear combinations of states 01 and 10 .

(b) It can be shown (after lots of tedious algebra) that
degenerate second excited states, is of the form

0
2
0

H =
~ 0
2
1

the perturbed Hamiltonian, in the basis of

0 1
0 1
1 0

Using degenerate perturbation theory, determine the first order energy corrections to the second
excited state of this system. What happens to the degeneracies when is increased? What are
the good linear combinations of states that leave the energy of the Hamiltonian unchanged as
is suppressed?
3. (If you feel like you want more perturbation theory practice) This problem is a variant on problem 7.14
in Griffiths. If a photon had a small mass, m 6= 0, the Coulomb potential would be replaced by the
Yukawa potential


cm r
e2
exp
.
V (r) =
40 r
~
Using perturbation theory, evaluate the first order correction to the binding energy of the hydrogen
atom in the ground state (Important: You are not given what H is in this problem. Expand V (r) to
first order and you should get what you desire!). What would happen if you tried to apply second order
perturbation theory to the ground state of hydrogen?
4. Consider a particle moving in a 1D potential, V (x) = , for x < 0 and V (x) = ax, for x > 0. Using
the trial wavefunction (x) = x exp(x), where is your variational parameter, estimate the ground
 2 1/3


~2 3ma 2/3
3
2~
state energy. [Ans: E() = 2m
+
a
]
2
2
3ma
2~
5. (If you have a lot of time on your hands): Consider an anharmonic oscillator Hamiltonian given by
H = H 0 + aX 3 + bX 4 ,
where H 0 is the unperturbed SHO Hamiltonian.
(a) Show that the first order correction to the energy is given by
En1

3
= b
4

~
m

2

(2n2 + 2n + 1).

(Notice that the first order correction doesnt depend on the constant a. Why do you think this
is?)
(b) Show that the second order correction to the energy is given by
En2

15
= b
4

~
m

3

11 a2
1
(n + n + )

30 ~ 8
2

~
m

4

(34n3 + 51n2 + 59n + 21)

b2
.
~