English

Divergence of $\langle p^6\rangle$ in discontinuous potential wells

Quantum Physics 2021-06-24 v1

Abstract

The surprising divergence of the expectation value < ⁣p6 ⁣><\!p^6\!> for the square well potential is known. Here, we prove and demonstrate the divergence of < ⁣p6 ⁣><\!p^6\!> in potential wells which have a finite jump discontinuity; apart from the square-well two-piece half-potentials wells are examples. These half-potential wells can be expressed as V(x)=U(x)Θ(x)V(x)=-U(x) \Theta(x), where Θ(x)\Theta(x) is the Heaviside step function. U(x)U(x) are continuous and differentiable functions with minimum at x=0x=0 and which may or not vanish as xx\sim \infty.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.01597,
  title  = {Divergence of $\langle p^6\rangle$ in discontinuous potential wells},
  author = {Zafar Ahmed and Sachin Kumar and Dona Ghosh and Joseph Amal Nathan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.01597},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Five figures and 5 pages