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Eigenfunction Expansion The Free Particle

Abstract:

This document describes how, given an initial wave function, the wave function at time t can be found. First the initial wave function is decomposed into an expansion of the Hamiltonian eigenfunctions. Time dependence is then applied to these eigenfunctions. Finally, the wave function in x-space is recreated from the expansion.

A free particle gaussian wave packet is used as an example. All calculations are done discretely, such that they may readily be implemented in Matlab .





Last modified: Mon Sep 25 16:11:02 EDT 1995