Recent content by Phyre1

Thanks, got it I think!

Thanks Rap. That makes sense. Just one final question - is it right to say that the particle's properties (velocity, momentum etc) are completely independent of the wavepacket shape and the rate at which its width increases since we arbitrarily choose f(k) (often to be Gaussian)?

Thanks Rap. I think I see now, so the spreading of the wavefunction g(x,t) with time is due to the spectral distribution f(k) only. Therefore, this is completely independent of the particle's properties for which the wavepacket is modelling, since we arbitrarily choose f(k) and generally choose...

Ok, thanks. I see how energy and momentum are not well defined. Therefore, could we say that the dispersion of a wavepacket is only determined by it's width and not by the particle's momentum and energy? Since if a wavepacket has greater average energy (using the definitions you've given above)...

Hi, I'm trying to get my head round modelling particles in free space in quantum mechanics. I appreciate that we can "build" wavepackets by superposing many plane waves with different k-numbers (i.e. with different frequencies & momentums & energies I think). The greater the number of phase...