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L9.P1 The Fermi-Dirac Distribution: Lecture 9 Page 1

This document discusses time-independent perturbation theory. It begins by introducing the unperturbed Hamiltonian H0 and its known eigenfunctions and eigenvalues. A small perturbation H' is then added to the potential. Perturbation theory is used to find approximate solutions to the perturbed Hamiltonian H = H0 + H' as expansions in terms of the perturbation strength. The document derives the first-order and second-order corrections to the energies and first-order correction to the wavefunctions. It provides examples calculating the first-order energy correction for infinite square well potentials with small added perturbations.

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Ijaz Talib
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51 views

L9.P1 The Fermi-Dirac Distribution: Lecture 9 Page 1

This document discusses time-independent perturbation theory. It begins by introducing the unperturbed Hamiltonian H0 and its known eigenfunctions and eigenvalues. A small perturbation H' is then added to the potential. Perturbation theory is used to find approximate solutions to the perturbed Hamiltonian H = H0 + H' as expansions in terms of the perturbation strength. The document derives the first-order and second-order corrections to the energies and first-order correction to the wavefunctions. It provides examples calculating the first-order energy correction for infinite square well potentials with small added perturbations.

Uploaded by

Ijaz Talib
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
You are on page 1/ 9

Lecture 9 L9.

P1
The Fermi-Dirac distribution

Lecture 9 Page 1
L9.P2
Time-independent perturbation theory

Nondegenerate perturbation theory

General formalism of the problem:

Suppose that we solved the time-independent Schrödinger equation for some potential
and obtained a complete set of orthonormal eigenfunctions and corresponding
eigenvalues .

This is the problem that we completely


understand and know solutions for.

We mark all these solutions and the Hamiltonian with " " label.

Now we slightly perturb the potential. For example, we raise a little bit the bottom
of the infinite square well or put a little bump there:

The problem of the perturbation theory is to find eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the
perturbed potential, i.e. to solve approximately the following equation:

using the known solutions of the problem

For now, we consider nondegenerate case, i.e. each eigenvalue corresponds to different
eigenfunction.

Lecture 9 Page 2
L9.P3

We expand our solution as follows in terms of perturbation H'

We plug our expansions into

Lecture 9 Page 3
L9.P4
We now separate this equation into a system of equations that are zeroth, first, second,
and so on orders in perturbation potential H':

Separating the equations for zeroth, first, and second orders we get:

Zeroth order

First order

Second order

If we consider more terms in the expansions for and we can write equations for third,
fourth, and higher orders of perturbation theory.

Lecture 9 Page 4
L9.P5
First-order perturbation theory

We are going to multiply this equation by and integrate:

Therefore, the first-order energy is given by:

Lecture 9 Page 5
L9.P6
Problem #1

The solutions for the infinite square well are:

Find the first-order correction to the energies for the potential

Solution:

Corrected energy levels are

Problem #2

The same for the potential

Lecture 9 Page 6
L9.P7
First-order correction to the wave function

can be expanded as a linear combination of functions since they


constitute a complete set.

Our mission now is to find coefficients . To do so, we plug our expansion (2) into the first-
order equation (1).

We multiply this equation from the left side by and integrate. I will not explicitly
write integrals here, but use inner product notations right away. It is, of course, the same.

Lecture 9 Page 7
L9.P8

First-order correction to the wave function is given by

Note that as long as m ≠n, the denominator can not be zero as long as energy levels are
nondegenerate. If the energy levels are degenerate, we need degenerate perturbation theory
( consider later).

Lecture 9 Page 8
L9.P9
Second-order correction to the energy

Again, we multiply the whole equation from the left by and integrate.

The second-order correction to the energy is

Lecture 9 Page 9

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