Probability of Finding an Electron Close to the Nucleus of a Hydrogen Atom

homework-and-exerciseshydrogenprobabilityquantum mechanics

I am trying to calculate the probability of finding an electron in a small volume element close to the nucleus of a ground state hydrogen atom. I then need to calculate the same but replacing the electron with a negative pion. By "close to the nucleus" it means some radius R where $R \ll a_0$ and $a_0$ is the bohr radius for an electron. I have tried to calculate the probability using the wavefunction of ground state hydrogen but that doesn't seem to be working out for me.
$$\Psi = \frac {1}{\sqrt {\pi}} \left (\frac {1}{a_0} \right )^{\frac {3}{2}} \exp \left [ \frac {-r}{a_0}\right ]$$

$$P = \int_0^{R}\int_0^{\pi}\int_0^{2\pi} \Psi.\Psi^* r^2 \sin(\theta)dr d\theta d\phi = \frac {4}{a_0^3}\int_0^R r^2\exp \left [ \frac {-2r}{a_0}\right ] dr$$

$$= \frac {4}{a_0^3} \left[\frac {4}{a_0^3} – \frac 1 4 (a_0^3 + 2Ra_0^2 + 2R^2a_0)\exp \left [ \frac {-2R}{a_0}\right ] \right]$$

Multiplying in the constant:

$$=1-\left(1+\frac {2R}{a_0} + \frac {2R^2}{a_0^2}\right)\exp \left [ \frac {-2R}{a_0}\right ]$$

Then when I take the approximation $R \ll a_0$ it simply leaves me with $P = 1 – 1 = 0$ and similar for the pionic hydrogen. Since this doesn't really reveal anything about the different probability distributions of electronic hydrogen and pionic hydrogen I get the feeling I'm not using the right approach. Is there a different way I should go about this?

Best Answer

Personally, I’d do the approximation in the exponential,

$$e^\epsilon \approx 1 + \epsilon + \frac{\epsilon^2}{2!} + \cdots, $$

before doing the integral.

\begin{align} P &= \frac4{a_0^3} \int_0^R \mathrm dr\, r^2 \exp\frac{-2r}{a_0} \\ \frac{a_0^3}{4} P &\approx \int_0^R\mathrm dr\,r^2 - \frac2{a_0}\int_0^R \mathrm dr\,r^3 \\&= \frac{R^3}{3} - \frac2{a_0}\frac{R^4}{4} \\&= \frac{R^3}{3} \left( 1 - \frac32 \frac R{a_0} \right) \\ P &\approx \frac43 \left(\frac{R}{a_0}\right)^3 \end{align}

Throwing away the second term basically says “this volume is small enough we can assume the exponential is secretly a constant.”

This result suggests you are getting zeros because you’re only keeping terms that are quadratic in $R/a_0$, but apparently they all get cancelled out.