Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/ib/paper-4/15d/b/ii/solution

Put . Then
After substitution and cancellation of the terms, the equation becomes
For the power series , the coefficient of is
Thus
If the series does not terminate, then , so acquires the large- behaviour and grows like . Normalizability therefore requires termination, which occurs when
for some positive integer . Hence
The ground state has , so the hydrogen ground-state energy is
This is the series-termination quantization of the Coulomb radial equation.

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