Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-1/section-a/1/solution

The original diagram places hard walls at and , and the central plateau on is exactly at the indicated ground-state energy. This equality determines the middle of the requested sketch. In the Time-independent Schrödinger equation,
the central interval has , hence . The ground state can be chosen real and positive inside the walls by the nodeless theorem for a one-dimensional ground state. Reflection symmetry makes it even about , so its linear central segment must be constant.
The hard-wall boundary conditions are . On both outer intervals , so the positive wavefunction has negative curvature and is sinusoidal. Wavefunction matching at a finite potential step requires both and to remain continuous at ; the derivative therefore vanishes where each sinusoidal flank meets the flat middle. A normalized representative is
Each side contributes and the plateau contributes to the squared norm before multiplying by . The corresponding consistency condition is ; a numerical energy is not required for the sketch.
Figure 1.
The positive ground-state wavefunction has sinusoidal flanks and a flat central segment at V equals E
. Details.
Thus the ground state at the top of a central rectangular barrier has no internal nodes, continuous value and slope, and a flat middle, rather than an exponential dip through a classically forbidden region. Multiplication by an overall constant phase changes none of these physical features.

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