Exact Analytical and Numerical Solutions to the Time-Dependent Schrödinger Equation for a One-Dimensional Potential Exhibiting Non-Exponential Decay at All Times

Athanasios N. Petridis, Lawrence P. Staunton, Jon Vermedahl, Marshall Luban
DOI: 10.4236/jmp.2010.12018                

Abstract

The departure at large times from exponential decay in the case of resonance wavefunctions is mathematically demonstrated. Then, exact, analytical solutions to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation in one dimension are developed for a time-independent potential consisting of an infinite wall and a repulsive delta function. The exact solutions are obtained by means of a superposition of time-independent solutions spanning the given Hilbert space with appropriately chosen spectral functions for which the resulting integrals can be evaluated exactly. Square-integrability and the boundary conditions are satisfied. The simplest of the obtained solutions is presented and the probability for the particle to be found inside the potential well as a function of time is calculated. The system exhibits non-exponential decay for all times; the probability decreases at large times as . Other exact solutions found exhibit power law behavior at large times. The results are generalized to all normalizable solutions to this problem. Additionally, numerical solutions are obtained using the staggered leap-frog algorithm for select potentials exhibiting the prevalence of non-exponential decay at short times.

Keywords

Non-Exponential, Decay, Exact, Solutions

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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