The radial probability density includes the spherical-shell volume factor:
Consequently the radial expectation value is
Keeping and fixed, the hydrogenic ground-state radius scaling is therefore : the state has half the mean radius of the state. Equivalently, with , the mean radii are and . For the physical electron-nucleus Coulomb potential, is the Bohr radius of the fixed-nucleus hydrogen atom model.
Figure 1.
Radial probability densities for the one-electron and Coulomb bound states; dashed lines mark their mean radii
. The horizontal coordinate is . The normalized densities are , so their means are . Details.
The exact comparison in this one-electron model describes the hydrogen-like ion . A neutral helium atom has two electrons; its exact size also depends on their mutual Coulomb interaction and is not determined by this one-electron calculation. The stated half-radius conclusion is the prediction of the model supplied in the paper.
The smallest energy eigenvalue in part (iii) occurs at the smallest possible principal quantum number, . Since , this forces and . Therefore , and
For the spherically symmetric ground state, the full three-dimensional wavefunction normalization uses . Integrating over the solid angle gives
Put and use the supplied factorial integral:
Thus . Choosing the positive global phase convention gives
This is the radial normalization of the hydrogen ground state convention in which the angular factor is absorbed into the spherically symmetric function. If instead one writes with the normalized spherical harmonic , then . Both conventions describe the same normalized three-dimensional quantum state.
For brevity write . With the physical indicial root , substitute into the equation from part (i). The coefficient of is
The indicial equation has already canceled the still lower power . Rearranging gives the recurrence relation
Its denominator is for every .
To impose wavefunction normalization at infinity, first suppose that the series never terminates. Then
This is the exponential-series growth associated with , which would overwhelm the factor in . A direct lower-bound argument makes the conclusion precise. All sufficiently late recurrence ratios are real and positive, so after a common global phase choice the tail coefficients have one sign. For any , there is an index such that
Induction then bounds the tail below by a positive multiple of
The finitely many earlier terms form a polynomial and cannot cancel this exponential growth. Thus grows at least as a positive multiple of for large , contradicting wavefunction normalization. This proves that the regular series must terminate.
Since the denominator never vanishes, termination requires the numerator to vanish at some nonnegative integer :
Then and every later coefficient is zero. Consequently is a polynomial of degree , with a factor ; equivalently,
where has degree . This is series-termination quantization of the Coulomb radial equation. If denotes the principal quantum number, the associated energy eigenvalues are
Here counts the degree of the remaining radial polynomial; it is not the principal quantum number itself.
Apply the Frobenius method at the origin. The lowest power in is , with coefficient
The terms and start at power and therefore cannot cancel a nonzero coefficient. Because , the indicial equation is
Its roots are and . Since , their leading behaviors are respectively and . The physical choice is
This is the Coulomb radial origin condition. For , the other branch is not even locally normalizable: its radial probability integral behaves as , which diverges.
For , the singular behavior is locally square-integrable with the measure , so local wavefunction normalization alone would not reject it. The ordinary three-dimensional Coulomb potential problem additionally requires the regular boundary condition . A branch violates that condition and has divergent kinetic energy integral . Thus it is excluded from the physical energy domain as well. The regular choice gives in every case.
Introduce the reduced radial wavefunction . Multiplying the radial Schrödinger equation for a central potential by gives
For the decaying bound state, take and put . Differentiation yields
Since , the two constant multiples of cancel. Dividing by the nonzero exponential gives
This separates the large-radius exponential decay from the remaining Coulomb bound state equation.
The position operator and momentum operator are self-adjoint operators, so the adjoint operator is
Use the canonical commutation relation with the order of factors preserved:
Subtracting the first product from the second proves
These creation and annihilation operators are unscaled and carry the paper's phase convention; their commutator is not the unit-normalized oscillator commutator.
Centre the position operator and momentum operator by their real expectation values:
Scalar multiples of the identity operator commute with every linear operator, so the canonical commutation relation gives
The second moments of the centred linear operators are the variances, and . Applying the preceding inequality and taking nonnegative square roots proves the Heisenberg uncertainty relation:
Subtracting the means is essential: the uncentred second moments alone do not equal the variances. The equality case of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation requires the centred vectors to be imaginary multiples, as in the preceding equality conditions.

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
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    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
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    Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
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    Figure 6.
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    .
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