Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ib Paper 4 15D b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Take the spherical harmonic to have unit angular norm. The radial normalization condition is thenThereforeEquivalently, if denotes the entire spherically symmetric wavefunction rather than the radial factor multiplying normalized , then .
The expected radius isFor the ground state, . The Bohr radius is , soThe mean radius is therefore of the Bohr-radius scale and is one and a half times . This is the radial normalization of the hydrogen ground state.