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Tutorial 3: GEK1510/PC1323 Great Ideas in Contemporary Physics

This document contains three tutorial questions about quantum physics concepts: 1) Particle confinement in a 1D box, including allowed wavelengths, momenta, energies, and most/least likely locations based on quantum number. 2) Hydrogen atom orbitals including guessing the shape of 4s and qualitatively plotting probability against radial distance. 3) Stating whether elementary particle interactions can occur and explaining forbidden rules using conservation of energy and other principles. An online resource for looking up unfamiliar particles is provided.

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57 views1 page

Tutorial 3: GEK1510/PC1323 Great Ideas in Contemporary Physics

This document contains three tutorial questions about quantum physics concepts: 1) Particle confinement in a 1D box, including allowed wavelengths, momenta, energies, and most/least likely locations based on quantum number. 2) Hydrogen atom orbitals including guessing the shape of 4s and qualitatively plotting probability against radial distance. 3) Stating whether elementary particle interactions can occur and explaining forbidden rules using conservation of energy and other principles. An online resource for looking up unfamiliar particles is provided.

Uploaded by

WizardWannabe
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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GEK1510/PC1323 Great Ideas in Contemporary Physics

Tutorial 3
1. Consider a particle of mass m that is confined to a one-dimensional box of length L in
quantum theory.
(a) What are the allowed wavelengths a particle wave function can take in the box?
Express your answer in terms of the quantum number n, where n = 1, 2, 3, . . .
(b) What are then the allowed momenta and energies of the particle?
(c) Suppose the particle is in the n = 4 state, which parts of the box is it most likely to be
found, and which parts is it least likely to be found?

2. The 1s, 2s and 3s orbitals of the hydrogen atom have been discussed in lecture.
(a) Based on these examples, guess the shape of the 4s orbital and then sketch or otherwise describe it.
(b) Using your results in (a), qualitatively plot the probability | |2 against radial distance
r from the center of the atom.

3. Consider the elementary particle interactions below and, for each one, state whether or
not it can occur and, if not, explain what rules or principles forbid it (if there is more than
one rule, mention all). Do not forget conservation of energy!
(a) 0 + n + p
(b) e + + e
(c) 0 + n 0 + 0
+
(d) +
c 0 + e + e

Not all particles that appear above will be familiar to you from lecture so make sure to look
up anything you havent seen. The particle listings at http://pdg.lbl.gov are an excellent
authoritative resource freely available from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in
California.

Last updated: February 27, 2015 5:30 pm (CCL)


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Semester II, 2014/15

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