Chapter 5

One-dimensional Problems

Life is complex – it has both real and imaginary parts.

Anonymous

5.1  INTRODUCTION

We have seen in earlier chapters that microscopic particles always manifest themselves in the form of waves: depending upon the situation the wave could be an extended plane wave or could be in the form of a wave packet. The form of these waves may be obtained by solving the corresponding Schrodinger equation of the particle under the given conditions. In this chapter, we shall study dynamics of a particle in one-dimensional space under a given potential field, that is, we shall find out energy eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian operator. But firstly we shall discuss some of the general features of the eigenfunctions. ...

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