STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

Graduate Placement Exam Part 2, Aug. 24, 2011 (18:00 - 22:30)
General Instructions: This exam is for incoming graduate students who wish to
demonstrate mastery in one or more areas of the graduate core curriculum, in order
to skip one or more of the rst-year courses. Do two of the three problems in either
or both areas.
Each solution should typically take less than 45 minutes.
Use one exam book for each problem, and label it carefully with the problem topic
and number and your name. Make sure to do every part of the problems you choose.
You may use a one page help sheet, a calculator, and with the proctors approval, a
foreign language dictionary. No other materials may be used.
Quantum Mechanics 1
A particle of mass is moving in a one-dimensional potential
{
(),
for < < ,
() =
+,
for
,
with > 0.
a. (10 pts) Find the eigenenergies and the eigenfunctions () of the evennumbered states (in the convention that the states are numbered successively
starting with the ground state = 1).
b. (10 pts) Derive the transcendental equations that determine the energy 1 of
the ground state. Find this energy and the wavefunction 1 () for a special
value of the strength of the -function, = 2 /.
SOLUTION:
a. Since the potential is symmetric () = (), the wavefunctions have denite
parity, with the even-numbered states being odd, () = (). Therefore, for
these states, (0) = 0, and the -function in () does not have any eect on these
states. This means that they coincide with the states in the same potential but
without the -function part:

2
1
2
(/2) , () =
sin(/2) , = 2, 4, 6, ... .
=
2

b. Because of the negative -function part of the potential, the energy 1 of the
ground state can be, in principle, both positive and negative. Assuming rst that
1 > 0, the wavefunction that satises the boundary condition 1 () = 0, and is
even, 1 () = 1 (), can be written as
2 2
> 0.
2
The boundary condition at = 0 takes then the form:

cos = 2 sin ,

a gives the equation for , and therefore the energy 1 :

= tan , 2 .

This equation shows qualitatively that such a solution for 1 , i.e., this energy is
positive, only if < 1, that is, for < 2 /. This means that if > 2 /, the
energy 1 is negative, and one should take the wavefunction 1 () in the following
form:
2 2
1 () = sinh ( ) , 1 =
< 0.
2
Then, as above, the boundary condition at = 0 gives the following equation for
:
= tanh .
1 () = sin ( ) , 1 =

One can see qualitatively from this equation that it determines the energy 1 < 0 in
the regime when > 1, i.e. for > 2 /.
Comparison of the two equations for the ground state energy 1 obtained above shows
that for = 2 /, this energy vanishes, 1 = 0. The wavefunction of the ground
state in this case can be written as:
1 () = ( ) ,
since then (1 ) = 0 for = 0. For this special value of , the wavefunction 1 () of
this form also satises both the boundary conditions at = and at = 0:
1 () = 0 ;

(1 ) (+0) (1 ) (0) = (2/2)1 (0) = 21 (0)/ .

Integrating 1 ()2 , we nd the normalization constant:

= (3/23 )1/2 .
Quantum Mechanics 2
Consider an isotropic three dimensional oscillator:
2
2 2
+
,
2
2
where = (, , ) and = ( , , ).
=

(1)

a. (10 pts) Find the eigenenergies and their degeneracies .

b. (10 pts) Since the Hamiltonian is spherically symmetric, the energy eigenstates
can be classied according to the angular momentum. What is the angular
momentum of the ground state? Using the basic properties of the wavefunction
of the 1D oscillators and spherical harmonics, nd for the rst excited energy
level and construct the standard angular momentum states , out of the
degenerate states of this energy.
SOLUTION:
(a.) By separation of variables in the cartesian coordinates, one sees that the problem
is equivalent to three one-dimensional oscillators, along , , axis. Therefore, the
total energy is
= ( + 3/2) ,
where = 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . is the total number of excitations of the three 1D oscillators. In
contrast to the unique ground state, all excited states are degenerate. The degeneracy
is equal to the number of ways one can distribute excitations among 3 oscillators.
To nd , one considers rst the number of the excitations of one of the oscillators,
= 0, 1, ..., and count the number of ways the remaining excitations can be
split between the two other oscillators. This number is seen directly to be + 1,
so that

+1

( + 1) =
= ( + 1)( + 2)/2 .
=
=0

=1

(b.) The rst two normalized eigenfunctions of a 1D oscillator are

1 2 /2
2
2
,
1 () = 1/4 /2 ,
0 () = 1/4

where
the distances are measured in units of a characteristic oscillator length =

/(). In this notations, the ground state of the 3D oscillator is

0 () =

1
3/4

2 + 2 + 2 )/2

1
3/4

2 /2

Since this wavefunction in spherical coordinate system is independent of angles and

of this system, it corresponds to the angular momentum = 0.
The three degenerate states of the rst excited energy level of the 3D oscillator are
obtained by taking one of the 1D oscillators to be in the rst excited state:

2 2 /2
2 2 /2
2
2
, () = 3/4
, () = 3/4 /2 .
() = 3/4

Since = sin cos , = sin sin , = cos , comparing the angular dependence
of these wavefunctions to spherical harmonics, we see that they all correspond to the
angular momentum = 1, and
1
1, 0 = , 1, 1 = ( ) .
2

Quantum Mechanics 3
Two spin-1/2 particles are in the singlet state = 0 . Let , = 1, 2, be
the component of the spin of particle in the direction dened by a unit vector
.
a. (12 pts) Calculate the correlator 1 2 expressing the result in terms of
2.
the angle between the vectors
1 and
b. (8 pts) What are the outcomes of individual measurements of the operator
1 2 ? Determine the probabilities of all individual outcomes in the singlet
state.
SOLUTION:
(a.) Choosing the coordinate system such that the direction
1 coincides with the
axis, while the direction
2 lies in the plane, one can write the product of the
two spin operators as follows:
1 2 = (/2)2(1) [cos (2) + sin (2) ] ,
where the superscripts indicate the spin the operators are acting on. Since the part
(1)
of the operator acting on the rst spin is diagonal ( ), the o-diagonal elements

in the average of this operator over the singlet = 0 = ( )/ 2

vanish, so that the average is:
[
1

1
2
2
= (/2) (1) [cos (2) + sin (2) ]
2
]
2
2
+ (1) [cos (2) + sin (2) ] = (cos + cos ) = cos .
8
4
(b.) Diagonalizing the operator 1 2 given in part (a), we see that its eigenvalues,
i.e., possible outcomes of measurement of this operator are 2 /4 independently of
the angle . There are two eigenvectors that correspond to each of the eigenvalue.
For 2 /4:
(+)

1 = cos(/2) +sin(/2) ,

and

(+)

2 = sin(/2) cos(/2) .

For 2 /4:
()

1 = sin(/2) cos(/2) ,

and

()

2 = cos(/2) +sin(/2) .

Calculating theinner product between these eigenstates and the singlet = 0 =

( )/ 2 one nds the probabilities of these outcomes of measurement:

(+)
()
2 = sin2 (/2) , =
2 = cos2 (/2) .
+ =
=1,2

=1,2

These probabilities give the average value in agreement with the one found in part
(a).
Statistical Mechanics 1
A gas has the following properties:
i. = , and
ii. work necessary for its isothermal compression from volume 2 to volume 1
is ln(2 /1 ), where , , and are constants.
Calculate the equation of state, thermodynamic potentials, energy (), enthalpy (),
free energy ( ), Gibbs energy () and grand potential (), and nally the entropy
of the gas. You may leave undetermined constants of integration in your answer.
SOLUTION:
For this case (given ), we know that
(, 1 ) = (

) =
1
1

which is the same as the equation of state of an ideal gas with = . Then we have
2

= 1 .
=
2

Integrating this twice gives

=

+1 + + .
( + 1)

with and new constants of integration. After some algebraic rearranging this gives

=
+1 + .

( + 1)

These are now used to derive the various thermodynamic potentials (in the most
convenient order):

) = ln +

ln + ( ) = ln
+1 + ( + )

( + 1)

)=
+1 +
(

+1
+
+
=

= (ln
=
=
=
=
=

Note that all but involve undetermined constants from the original integration.
Statistical Mechanics 2
A round cylinder of radius , containing an ideal classical gas is rotated about its
symmetry axis with angular velocity . Assuming that the gas is in thermodynamic
equilibrium with temperature ,
a. (12 pts) Calculate the gas pressure near the cylinders side wall, if it is equal to
at the cylinders axis, and
b. (8 pts) formulate the condition of validity of your result in terms of strong
inequalities between the following length scales: the de Broglie wavelength
/( )1/2 , eective particle size 0 , average distance ( /)1/3 between
the particles, and cylinder radius .
SOLUTION:
(a.) At equilibrium, the gas as the whole has to be at rest in the reference frame
rotating with the cylinder. From classical mechanics we know that in this non-inertial
reference frame we have to add, to all real forces, an inertial centrifugal force
F = 2
where is the vector perpendicular to the rotation axis and connecting this axis with
the rotating particle. This force may be presented as , where is the eective
potential energy
2 2
=
+ 0
2
with 0 an arbitrary constant. The pressure of an ideal classical gas in the eld of an
external potential is given by:
(r) = (0)(
6

2 2
)
2

with (0) = 0. Applying this equation to the points at the axis ( = 0) and at the
wall ( = ) we get
= (

2 2
)
2

(b.) The condition that a gas behaves classically (negligible quantum eects) is
<< , , while that for an ideal gas (negligible particle interactions) is 0 << ,
. A more tricky question is the relation between the particles mean free path,

3
>> and .
03

Let us assume << . Then at all distances between and we may consider
gas macroscopically, and apply to its small volume 3 << << 3 the following
condition of mechanical equilibrium (relative to the cylinder):
2 =
with = 3 = . Using the equation of state = and assuming
the same temperature everywhere, this yields

= 2 .

Integrating this immediately gives the same result as the Boltzmann formula.
Statistical Mechanics 3
A particle may occupy any of similar sites, and jump from that site to any other
one classically (i.e., without quantum-mechanical coherence between the jumps), with
the same rate . Find the correlation function and spectral density of uctuations of
the instantaneous occupancy () (equal to either 1 or 0) of any particular site.
SOLUTION:
The probability for the particle to occupy the (arbitrary) -th site is

= ( 1) +

=1

Since the sum of all should be equal to 1, the sum in the above equation equals
to (1 ), so that this is a linear dierential equation for one variable:

= ( 1) + (1 ) = (1 )

and may be readily solved for arbitrary initial conditions:

() = (0)( ) + ()(1 ( ) )
7

with () = 1/.
Now we can readily calculate all the averages of interest, starting from the (ensemble!)
average of the occupancy:

(, ) = (1, )
< () >=
=0,1

But (1, ) is just the probability to have this particular site occupied at time , i.e.
the () given by () above, so
< () >=< (0) > ( ) +

1
(1 ( ) ).

The (auto-)correlation function of the instantaneous occupancy is

< ()( + ) >=

(, )
( , , 0),
=0,1

=0,1

where the last is the conditional probability of occupancy at time , conditioned

by occupancy at time 0. Since one of two possible occupancy numbers is zero, in
this sum of generally four terms, only one term (with = = 1) gives a nonvanishing
contribution:
< ()( + ) >= (1, ) (1, 1, 0)
The rst operand of this product equals () = 1/, while the second one is just
( ) with the initial condition (0) = 1, so that we get
< ()( + ) >=

1 1
1
[ + (1 ) ]

The spectral density ()

1
()

1
.

=
2
2
2

( + 2)

The result describes the Lorentzian line shape, with the low-frequency density scaling
as ( 1)/ 3 .