[Physics] Ground State Energy of Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

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Letting $u=rR(r)$, the radial part of the SE becomes:

$$-\frac{\hbar^2}{2m}u_{rr}+\frac{1}{2}m\omega^2r^2 u+\frac{\hbar^2}{2m}\frac{l(l+1)}{r^2}u=Eu$$

I am interested in obtaining the energy of the ground state (which I know is $3\hbar \omega/2$). As such, I set $l=0$ to get

$$-\frac{\hbar^2}{2m}u_{rr}+\frac{1}{2}m\omega^2r^2 u=Eu$$

which is identical the 1D harmonic oscillator problem. The lowest energy of the 1D oscillator is $\hbar \omega/2$, which is not the right energy for the 3D case. Why does this method not give me the proper energy for the 3D case? How can I find the ground state energy using the spherical equations?

Best Answer

It is true that you obtain an equation for $u$ that is exactly equal to the equation for the 1D harmonic oscillator; what changes are boundary conditions. In fact, in solving these kind of equations, you require that the radial solution $R(r)$ goes like a certain power, that turns out to be $$ R(r) \xrightarrow[r \to 0]{} r^l\, . $$ Then necessarily we have $u(r)\xrightarrow[r \to 0]{} r^{l+1}$, that in particular for $l=0$ means $$ u(0)=0\,, \qquad u(r)\xrightarrow[r \to 0]{} r \, \,. $$

From here it can be noticed that this solution does not correspond to the ground state of the 1D harmonic oscillator, that being a Gaussian is not null at $r=0$.

The first eigenfunction of the 1D harmonic oscillator that fulfills the boundary conditions is actually the one corresponding to $n=1$, with an energy given by $$ E=\hbar \omega\left(1+\frac12\right)= \frac32 \hbar \omega \, , $$ which is the expected result.

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