W ORLD OF P HYSICS IV - Q UANTUM P HYSICS

Sourabh Dube
PHY202 held in Spring 2015: The instructor for this course is Prof. Sourabh Dube. The TAs
for this course are Chetan Vishwakarma, Sharath Thadeti, Chandan Kumar Singh and CS Sudheer
Kumar. The classes are held on Tue/Thu in LHC101 from 0930-1030, 1040-1140. The tutorial
will be held in four batches in LHC 101,105,106,108 on Fri from 1150-1250. The evaluation is as
follows: A mid-semester and end-semester examination will be conducted counting towards 60%
of the grade (30% each). Several quizzes and assignments will be handed to students throughout
the semester, each (total Quizzes and total Assignments) counting towards 20% of the grade.

What is Quantum Mechanics and why we need it?

Concept of Scale: In physics there is a scale at which laws hold. What is the purpose of these
laws? Its to allow us to understand and thus predict the phenomena that occur in nature.
Classical Mechanics is intuitive because it occurs at everyday scale. As we shrink the size
of objects which we consider, the laws that we need to apply also change.
Consider a wall and bouncing a ball of it. The wall is solid at this scale. But sometimes we
get moisture from outside in. Why? At that scale the wall is porous.
Consider meeting a friend outside class at 10.30 tomorrow, now the friend is 10 mins late.
You will question him. But if you decide to meet a friend in 6 months at Mulshi dam at 10.30
and he is 10 minutes late, you will probably excuse that. At that point, 10.40 is effectively
the same as 10.30 - here we encounter effective theory and scale.
Classical mechanics is an effective theory of the true underlying theory at the scale of everyday things.
But how did one rst feel that classical physics was inadequate? By seeing that there were
phenomena in nature which could not be predicted using our current theory (CM).
From the study of blackbody radiation, Planck suggested quantization of energy (1900), so
for EM wave of frequency , energy E = nh, where h is a fundamental constant of nature,
now we call it Plancks constant.
The photon as a discrete object was showed by Compton in 1924, but Einstein used h to
explain the photoelectric effect in 1905.

At the heart of QM is the concept of wave-particle duality.

1. Photoelectric effect, Compton effect Particle nature of light
2. Double-slit experiment Wave nature of matter

1.1

Experimental Need for Quantum Mechanics

Photoelectric Effect :
Light metal surface = current.

Figure 1: Figure shows the sketch of the experimental setup to observe the photo-electric effect.
Say light of frequency falls on a metal surface, and we apply a potential difference V between the
target and the collector. As electrons are ejected from the surface they are collected at the collector.
If the collector is at a negative potential with respect to the target, then the ejected electrons are
stopped from reaching the collector. Say Vstop is that negative potential at which the current just
falls to zero, i.e. no electron reaches the collector.
Then Kmax = eVstop , where Kmax is the maximum kinetic energy (KE) of the ejected electrons.
The puzzle is that this Kmax is independent of the intensity of the light source. Thus if the light
source is made brighter, one might expect that as light is a wave, the increasing intensity gives
larger amplitude electric eld, thus giving more energy to the electrons. Or for a feeble source, the
KE might go down.
But as it happens, light exhibits particle nature, with each packet having E = h. Then each
photon impacts E energy to the electron, and changing the intensity only changes the number of
photons. So a higher intensity gives more electrons, but the energy of each electron is determined
only by the of the photon.
So now we can vary , and plot Vstop for each frequency to make a plot of Vstop vs. . The frequency
below which we do not observe any current no matter what is called the cut-off frequency. And ,
the minimum energy needed for electrons to escape the metal, is called the work function of the
metal.

Figure 2: Figure shows the sketch of the result of the experiment to observe the photo-electric
effect.
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To take it a step further, since E = h = Kmax + , we can write

h

Vstop = ( ) ( )
e
e
Vstop vs is a straight line, from which we can estimate Plancks constant h.
Double-slit experiment :
Setup:
Source
Wall with two slits, size and nature appropriate to whether its photons or electrons or bullets
Detector (photons or electrons)

Figure 3: Figure shows the sketch of the setup of the double-slit experiment.
Let us consider three different scenarios
(i) Slit 1 open
(ii) Slit 2 open
(iii) Both slits open
and repeat the experiment with three different projectiles
(a) Bullets
(b) Photons
(c) Electrons.
For bullets, this is what we see (draw picture) in the three scenarios.
For light at normal intensity, (i) and (ii) are similar to the bullet picture. With (iii) we get an
interference pattern (Youngs double slit experiment 1801).
Let us try to analyze this using wave-nature of light. Consider a freely propagating wave, whose
amplitude is given by
A = Amax cos(t k x)

Now is the angular frequency, or the rate of change of phase factor per unit time, and k is the
wave vector, the rate of change of phase factor per unit distance. Some relations are frequency
= /2, period T = 2/, and wavelength = 2/|k|. For light |k|c = .
Now when each slit is open one at a time, the amplitudes are

A1 = Amax cos(t k1 x1 )
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A2 = Amax cos(t k2 x2 )

And intensity = (amplitude)2 ,

I1 = A1 2 = Amax 2 cos2 (t k1 x1 )

I2 = A2 2 = Amax 2 cos2 (t k2 x2 )
If both slits are open, then
Atotal = A1 + A2 = Amax (cos(t k1 x1 ) + cos(t k2 x2 ))
Itotal = A2total = A21 + A22 + 2A1 A2 = I1 + I2 + 2A1 A2

The term 2A1 A2 is what gives interference.

Let us take time average over one period
cos2 (t

X) =

2
0

cos2 (t X)dt
2
0 dt

Using cos2 X sin2 X = cos(2X), and cos2 + sin2 = 1, we get cos2 X =

of cos over a period is 0.

1+cos(2X)
,
2

and integral

Thus I1 = I2 = 12 A2max and then

Itotal = I1 + I2 + 2A1 A2 = A2max + 2A1 A2
A1 A2 = A2max cos(t k1 x1 ) cos(t k2 x2 )

Now cos(X) cos(Y ) = 1/2(cos(X + Y ) + cos(X Y ))

A1 A2 = A2max /2[cos(2t k1 x1 k2 x2 ) + cos(k1 x1 k2 x2 )]

2A1 A2 = A2max [cos(2t k1 x1 k2 x2 ) + cos(k1 x1 k2 x2 )]

Since cos(2t X) = 0,
and thus

2A1 A2 = A2max cos(k1 x1 k2 x2 )

Itotal = A2max (1 + cos(k1 x1 k2 x2 ))

In above, the cos term is space dependent, but time independent. And of course,
maximum intensity Itotal = 2A2max , and minimum intensity Itotal = 0.
Now we can repeat this experiment with light waves with much smaller intensities, thus getting to
emitting one photon at a time. The detector then shows discrete clicks, and what will we see on
the screen? Instead of smooth illumination, we see dots that build up to an interference pattern.
Interestingly, now we can repeat this experiment with electrons, also emitting a few electrons at a
time. For (i) and (ii) we see the same effect as for bullets. For (iii) we see an interference pattern
corresponding to a wave cos(t k x), where corresponds to energy E of the electron and k
corresponds to the momentum p of each electron.
We can apply a relation to the energy of the electron, Eel = const. . What is this ?, what
is this wave associated to an electron? The constant turns out to be same h as that for photons
discovered by Planck. And the wave-nature is fundamentally associated with the electron: the
electron is both a wave and a particle!
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de Broglie wavelength

The de Broglie wavelength for a particle of momentum p is given by (where h = 6.626 1034
Joule-sec)
h
(1)
=
p
.
Let us briey survey the numerical orders of magnitude, in chosen units, of the typical quantum
behaviors for atoms and elementary particles.
Recall that the typical size of an atom (including the orbital electrons) is
ratom 1 Angstrm = 1010 m

(2)

while the much smaller atomic nucleus has typical size

rnucleus 1 Fermi = 1015 m

(3)

In contrast, a dust particle has a size dimension

rdust 1 micron = 106 m

(4)

Turning now to mass, the mass of an electron1 is

me 1030 kg

(5)

mp mn 1027 kg

(6)

while the mass of a proton or neutron is

Since a dust particle is about 104 atoms in each direction, its mass will be about 1012 times the
atomic mass, or around
mdust 1015 kg
(7)
Now the de Broglie wavelength for a particle of momentum p is given by (where h = 6.6261034
Joule-sec)
h
=
(8)
p
.
For typical particles moving at typical speed, how big is this wavelength? Let us take the speed to
be
vdust 103 m/s
(9)

Then

pdust 1018 Joule sec/m

(10)

Unlike the size of particles, which are intrinsically ill-dened because of the uncertainty principle, the masses
are precise and well-dened. For example the exact values (to presently known accuracy) are me = 9.10938188
1031 kg, mp = 1.67262158 1027 kg, and mn = 1.67492729 1027 kg

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and hence
dust

1033 Joule sec

1015 m
1018 Joule sec/m

(11)

Comparing this wavelength to the size of the dust particle, we see that the wavelength is a billion
times smaller than the size of the particle. So it is not surprise that the quantum effects are not
prominent in the behavior of a dust particle.
On the other hand, a neutron or electron at room temperature typicall have a momentum determined
by the relation
p2
kB T 1023 Joule/deg 300deg 1020 Joule
(12)
2m
For neutrons, this leads to
pn 1023 Joule sec/m
(13)
and

1033 Joule sec

1010 m 1
1023 Joule sec/m

(14)

This is 105 times the size of the neutron! In fact it is the size of an atom. Thus for neutrons, we
should expect to see quantum effects if we scatter thermal neutrons from a crystal.

Classical Wave Physics

Consider a wave whose amplitude is given by A = Amax ei(kxt) .

If we put Amax = 1 and consider this at some time (say t = 0), then A = eikx . Recall that
eix = cos(x) + i sin(x). This wave just repeats for all x, i.e. everytime x x + 2/k.

Instead let us build a wave packet by considering the innite superposition of many such waves,
each with different ks.
A(x) = k (k)eikx , where (k) are (possibly complex) numerical coefcients.

Generalising to continuously varying k,

1
dk (k) eikx
A(x) =
2
Let us choose (k) such that A(x) forms a wavepacket. From theory of Fourier transform, let me
quote a result
1
(k) =
dx A(x) eikx
2

Now in general (k) is complex. Recall for complex z = x + iy = rei with r = x2 + y 2 ,

= tan1 (y/x), so (k) = |(k)|ei(k) . Here ei(k) is the phase.
Now if (k) varies smoothly in some interval [k0 k/2, k0 + k/2], then let us expand (k) in
small interval k in neighbourhood of k0
(k) = (k0 ) + (k k0 )
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d
|k=k0 = (k0 ) + (k0 k)x0
dk
6

where x0 = d
|
.
dk k=k0

Thus

1
A(x) =
dk |(k)| ei(k) eikx
2
1
A(x) =
dk |(k)| ei[(k0 )+kx+(kk0 )x0 ]
2

ei(k0 x(k0 ))

A(x) =
dk |(k)| ei(kk0 )(xx0 )

if (x x0 ) is large, i.e. away from the peak x0 , then the ei... term dominates and oscillates and
contributions to the integral of (k) cancel each other out. If on the other hand, x is close to x0 ,
then the ei... term does not oscillate and A(x) has a maximum.
Now, how far away must one be from x0 , before we get A(x) to decrease appreciably?
Its when (k k0 )(x x0 ) 1, i.e kx 1. This inequality can be rigorously proved. Also
from Fourier theory one sees that widths are inversely proportional. In other words, as we shrink
the spread in x, then the spread in k-space becomes larger.
This result is just for waves, and not a QM statement. If we consider and extreme example, i.e.
A(x) = 1, then we get that
1
(k) =
dx eikx = (k)
2
the Dirac delta function. We will encounter the Dirac delta function again, but its a function with
no width, completely localized at one point. Thus x = is correlated with k = 0

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