Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-1/section-a/1/solution

Write and use the Heisenberg uncertainty relation separately in the three Cartesian directions. Since a position coordinate is confined to an interval of length , Popoviciu's inequality on variances gives . Consequently , and the expectation value of the kinetic energy obeys
Thus an uncertainty-based lower estimate is . This confinement energy bound from position support is not sharp: the exact ground-state energy for a cubical infinite square well is . The Heisenberg uncertainty principle establishes the confinement scale ; identifying a box size with an approximate position standard deviation changes its numerical coefficient.

New to topics? Read the docs here!