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For example, impose homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions $y(a)=y(b)=0$, and use variations vanishing there. Homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions $p{y}^{\prime }=0$ are another choice removing the boundary terms. Put $N[y]={\int }_a^b(p{y}^{\prime 2}+q{y}^2)dx$, $D[y]={\int }_a^{b}w{y}^{2}dx>0$, and $I=N/D$. At a stationary function let $\lambda =I[y]$. The quotient rule gives $\delta I=(\delta N-\lambda \delta D)/D$. After integration by parts, stationarity under every allowed variation givesso the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations yields the stated Sturm-Liouville problem. Conversely an eigenfunction with those boundary conditions has $N=\lambda D$ and makes the quotient stationary. The lowest eigenvalue minimizes the Rayleigh quotient under the usual self-adjoint, lower-bounded hypotheses; higher eigenvalues are stationary values with orthogonality constraints when minimizing successively.

The hydrogen equation becomes $-(r^2{\psi }^{\prime }{)}^{\prime }-2r\psi =2E{r}^2\psi$. Its radial energy quotient is thereforeRegularity at zero and decay at infinity remove the boundary term $r^2\psi {\psi }^{\prime }$. The condition $\psi (0)=1$ fixes an arbitrary amplitude for these trial functions; it is not their three-dimensional probability normalization, which cancels from the quotient.

For $\psi =e^{-\alpha r}$, elementary exponential integrals give $\int r^2{\psi }^{2}dr=1/(4{\alpha }^3)$, $\int r^2{\psi }^{\prime 2}dr=1/(4\alpha )$, and $\int r{\psi }^{2}dr=1/(4{\alpha }^2)$. HenceFor the compactly supported linear trial for hydrogen, the norm, gradient and Coulomb integrals are ${\beta }^3/30$, $\beta /3$, and ${\beta }^2/12$, respectively. ThusThe derivative changes from negative to positive at four, so this is the minimum over positive $\beta$. The quantum variational principle gives upper bounds on the ground-state energy; the exponential trial is better, and in fact $e^{-r}$ satisfies the exact differential equation at $E=-1/2$. It is the nodeless hydrogen ground state in the given units. The linear trial is admissible for the energy quadratic form despite its derivative jump at $r=\beta$; it need not possess a classical second derivative at that point.