Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2008 / ib / Paper 1 / 15A (Quantum Mechanics)

The time-independent Schrödinger equation is $[-{\hslash }^2{\nabla }^2/(2m)+V]\Psi =E\Psi$. For the hydrogen atom, separate variables as $\Psi =g(r)Y_{\ell m}(\theta ,\phi )$. The spherical-coordinate Laplacian has radial part $r^{-2}{\partial }_r(r^2{\partial }_r)$ and angular part $r^{-2}{\Delta }_{S^2}$. A spherical harmonic obeys ${\Delta }_{S^2}{Y}_{\ell m}=-\ell (\ell +1)Y_{\ell m}$. The first displayed term is therefore radial kinetic energy; the second is the attractive Coulomb's law potential energy $-e^2/(4\pi {\epsilon }_{0}r)$ of electron and proton; the third is the angular kinetic energy, also called the centrifugal potential. Regular single-valued angular states have $\boxed{\ell =0,1,2,\dots }$, with orbital angular momentum squared ${\hslash }^2\ell (\ell +1)$.

For $g=r^{\alpha }{e}^{-\beta r}$, direct differentiation givesSubstitution into the Radial Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom and equality of the coefficients of $r^{-2}$, $r^{-1}$ and the constant term giveThe regular radial solution selects $\alpha =\ell$, rather than the singular branch $-\ell -1$. At $\ell =0$, $r^{-1}$ is locally square integrable but is still inadmissible as a regular Coulomb eigenfunction: its Laplacian has a point-source contribution at the origin. Bound-state decay requires $\beta >0$. Thus, with the Bohr radius $a_0=4\pi {\epsilon }_0{\hslash }^2/(m{e}^2)$,These are the nodeless states with principal quantum number $n=\ell +1$. Increasing $\ell$ raises the energy towards zero, so emission is from the state labelled $\ell +1$ to the one labelled $\ell$. Using the Planck constant $h=2\pi \hslash$ and photon energy $h\nu$, the frequency is