Rethinking the Boundary Conditions in the Particle-in-a-Box Mind Experiment

13 April 2022, Version 5
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

In this manuscript, I speculated that the energy density distributions along space and time in a quantum system are uniform according to the 1st law of thermodynamics. Thus, the complementary energy contributions are added to the classical solutions of the 1D particle in a box problem, making the energy density a complex distribution function over space and time. Then the concept is extended to the free rotation problem with a Hamiltonian slightly different than the classical Schrödinger equation. The picturized energy distribution functions and associated time evolution are described in movies for comparison between example classical wave functions and the energy density functions. The wave functions for the hydrogen atom are then guessed based on the historical solutions.

Keywords

Particle in a box
quantum rotation
rotational quantum numbers
hydrogen atom energy functions
atomic orbitals
quantum harmonic oscillator

Supplementary materials

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Description
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SI
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MATLAB codes and movies
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V4 rotation Y10Y11Y1n1.gif
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Rational wavefunction.
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V1 PIAB movie gif
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Particle in a box solution.
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V3 ClassicalRotationY10Y11Y1n1
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Classical rotation wavefunction.
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