Particle in a rectangular box Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Dirichlet separation in a rectangular box gives products of sine waves and energy proportional to .
The squared sine has integral over the interval of length , since it contains an integer number of half-wavelengths. A real positive phase convention therefore gives
Inside the infinite square well, the Time-independent Schrodinger equation is . The wavenumber is , so
The stationary states vanish at both walls and form an orthonormal basis of the square-integrable state space. A common arbitrary phase on each basis function does not alter any energy or measurement probability.
For the Hamiltonian , the real-time configuration-space path integral is
with its measure defined by time slicing. Wick rotation gives the Euclidean path integral and the thermal trace.
For the infinite square well on , the Dirichlet boundary conditions select the normalized energy eigenstates
There is no state: the corresponding sine is identically zero. Taking the trace in this orthonormal basis gives the canonical partition function
Use the normalized eigenfunctions of the infinite square well,
The sine identity expands the initial wavefunction as
The normalization factor yields precisely these coefficients. By the Born rule, the energy measurement probabilities are for and for . Thus the energy expectation is
The two probabilities sum to one, also checking the wavefunction normalization.
Inside the infinite square well, the time-independent Schrodinger equation is . The infinite exterior potential imposes . For , the first condition leaves a sine and the second requires . A zero or negative energy gives only the zero solution under these conditions. The normalized energy eigenstates and eigenvalues are
The wavefunctions vanish outside the well, and a constant phase is immaterial. Normalization uses .
Inside the infinite square well, the stationary Schrodinger equation for unit mass is
Its normalized eigenstates and energies are
The general normalized time-dependent solution is
Immediately after removing the barrier, the normalized wavefunction is
Its Fourier sine series coefficients in the full-well basis are
They are
The Born rule therefore gives
A stationary state has the form
For a time-independent quantum observable , the global phases cancel in the expectation value:
It is therefore independent of time.
For the infinite square well,
The possible energy measurement results are
with respective Born rule probabilities and . Normalization gives .
At time ,
The required matrix elements are
Consequently
where the angular frequency is
Finally, , so
Inside the infinite square well, the time-independent Schrodinger equation has Dirichlet boundary conditions at and . Its normalized energy eigenstates and energy eigenvalues are
Reflecting an interval repeatedly across its endpoints maps a reflected path to a free path in an image interval. A return trajectory from ends at after an even number of wall reflections, or after an odd number. An infinite square well has reflection amplitude , so the corresponding Dirichlet heat kernel on an interval is the difference of direct and mirrored free kernels. Individual straight paths illustrate the geometry; the path integral sums all time-sliced paths with the same endpoints.