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Midterm Exam 03: Solving An ODE Like It's The Transcontinental Railroad

The document discusses solving a differential equation (DE) for the wave function of a particle in a finite potential well. The key differences from other DE problems were the boundary conditions that turned it into an eigenvalue problem requiring solutions where the particle energy E equals specific values. Integrating the DE from both sides was necessary to satisfy the boundary conditions at the edges of the potential well. While straightforward, disadvantages could include not knowing the boundary conditions or computing unneeded derivatives. An alternative method called Numerov's algorithm is more precise but also more complex.

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Bradley Andrew
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35 views3 pages

Midterm Exam 03: Solving An ODE Like It's The Transcontinental Railroad

The document discusses solving a differential equation (DE) for the wave function of a particle in a finite potential well. The key differences from other DE problems were the boundary conditions that turned it into an eigenvalue problem requiring solutions where the particle energy E equals specific values. Integrating the DE from both sides was necessary to satisfy the boundary conditions at the edges of the potential well. While straightforward, disadvantages could include not knowing the boundary conditions or computing unneeded derivatives. An alternative method called Numerov's algorithm is more precise but also more complex.

Uploaded by

Bradley Andrew
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Bradley Andrew

Midterm Exam 03

Solving an ODE like it’s the Transcontinental Railroad

When studying the problem of a particle in a finite potential well, we solved for the wave

function ψ(x), by integrating a second-order linear differential equation from left-to-right

(in position x space) and from right-to-left, iterating over the value of the particle’s

energy E until the two integrations match at some prescribed location xmatch. What

was different about this particular problem as compared to other ODE problems? Why

was it important that we integrate from both directions? Discuss the advantages (and

disadvantages) of solving the problem in this way. Can you envision an-other way to

solve the problem while still satisfying all of the requirements that originally motivated

the two-directional integration solver?

The biggest difference in this problem was although the ODE was like what we had

already solved and was quite simple the difference in the finite potential well was the

boundary conditions that had to be met. Having boundary conditions turned the ODE

problem into an eigenvalue problem that has solutions only for particle values of E or

the energy which in our problem was represented as k. We had to integrate from both

sides as those were the boundary conditions that we were using. The potential on each

side outside the box vanishes to zero exponentially. An advantage to solving the

problem this way would be that it is relatively simple. Though I did not understand it very

well at first, it is much more general by just solving an ODE solver plus a ‘searcher’ for

the lowest eigenvalue which in this case is the most negative energy the particle can
Bradley Andrew

have at the bottom of the potential well. This makes it only have a few lines of code and

is computationally not very extensive. A potential disadvantage of this method I could

see for a problem similar to this would be if you did not know one or both of the

boundary conditions. You would then not be able to integrate from both sides. This

would also prevent you from find the eigenvalues unless you used a different method.

Another slight disadvantage with this method is that using the ODE solver means you

solve for the first derivative to then solve for the function though the equation to begin

with only relates the function to the second derivative so this method could be

computing more than you actually need. A different method for solving this problem is

the Numerov Algorithm, which is specialized for ODEs not containing any first

derivatives. This method is less general than our previous, but it does provide more

precision.

A brief derivation of the method is that you do a Taylor series expansion on the wave

function plus some h as well as minus some h ( w(x+h) and w(x-h) ). You then sum

these two, drop terms past the fourth derivative and rearrange to solve for the second

derivative. Then the fourth derivative is substituted by a derived expression that only

depends on the second derivative. Finally using the central-difference approximation for

the second derivative you obtain the Numerov algorithm which only uses values of the

wave function at the two previous steps x and x-h to move the wave function forward to

x + h.

This method only uses the second derivative and does not require the use of specific

boundary conditions. However, from looking at the example code in the book, it is more
Bradley Andrew

longer and more complicated than our original method which was much more general

and easier to understand though again less precise and requiring boundary conditions.

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