Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/s18/1/d/iv/solution

For a nonzero everywhere attractive weak potential, , the pole has with . The exterior waves decay as , giving one shallow bound state to leading weak-coupling order:
Its size is much larger than the potential range because . For an everywhere repulsive potential there is no negative-energy normalizable bound state: the kinetic and potential quadratic forms are both nonnegative. Its lower-half-plane pole is a virtual state, not a stable bound state. More complicated sign-changing potentials with a vanishing integral require higher-order analysis and are not covered by this simple leading result.

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