[Physics] The Expansion Coefficients for a Particle in a Box

homework-and-exercisesquantum mechanics

This is an expansion of two previous questions I had before (I am very confused by it). I am now encountering a problem with an integral. We want a general expression for the probability of finding E. We have the expression for the wave function for the particle in a box:

$$\psi(x)=x\sin(\frac{\pi x}{a})$$

We evaluate $c_n$ to find $|c_n|^2$, the probability our measured E will be at level n. To calculate $c_n$, I did

$$c_n = \int_0^a \sin(\pi\, n\frac{x}{a})x\sin(\pi\frac{x}{a})dx$$
All times some normalization constant which is not important for my question. We evaluate this integral using mathematica, and find that it equals

$$\frac{a^2(-2n(1+\cos(n\pi))-(-1+n^2)\pi\sin(n\pi))}{(-1+n^2)^2\pi^2}$$

Obviously, we have a problem for $n=1$: we get zero over zero. Is there something we did wrong with this integral? The only way I can get an answer that isn't in-determinant is if I take n to be 1 before integration. Do we have a piecewise function for our general expression? I am just very confused. Any help would be appreciated.

Best Answer

Hints: It is easy to do the integral yourself without the aid of Mathematica.

  1. For instance use the product-to-sum-formula for the two sines.

  2. Then integrate by part to get rid of the $x$ power.

  3. You will need the following primitive integrals (aka. antiderivatives or indefinite integrals): $$ \int \!dx ~\cos(bx)~=~ \left\{\begin{array}{ccc} \frac{\sin(bx)}{b} &\text{for}& b\neq 0, \\ x&\text{for}& b= 0,\end{array} \right. $$ and $$ \left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\int \!dx ~\frac{\sin(bx)}{b} &=& \frac{1-\cos(bx)}{b^2} &\text{for}& b\neq 0, \\ \int \!dx~x &=& \frac{x^2}{2}&\text{for}& b= 0.\end{array} \right. $$ Here the various integration constants have been chosen such that the $b=0$ case can be viewed as the limit $b\to 0$ of the $b\neq0$ case.

  4. Then the above comment of Jerry Schirmer clearly applies: You can either recover the limit $b\to 0$ from the $b\neq0$ case, or treat the $b=0$ case separately.