On the truncation of the harmonic oscillator wavepacket
Quantum Physics
2009-11-11 v1
Abstract
We present an interesting result regarding the implication of truncating the wavepacket of the harmonic oscillator. We show that disregarding the non-significant tails of a function which is the superposition of eigenfunctions of the harmonic oscillator has a remarkable consequence: namely, there exist infinitely many different superpositions giving rise to the same function on the interval. Uniqueness, in the case of a wavepacket, is restored by a postulate of quantum mechanics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0504229,
title = {On the truncation of the harmonic oscillator wavepacket},
author = {L Rebollo-Neira and S Jain},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0504229},
year = {2009}
}