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quasar_4
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Homework Statement
I believe this is a pretty standard question. A particle is initially in the ground state of a box of length L. Suddenly, the box expands symmetrically to twice its size, without disturbing the wavefunction. Show that the probability of finding the particle in the ground state of the new box is (8/(3Pi))^2.
Homework Equations
We're using the box defined (initially) from -L/2.. L/2, and the potential is infinite everywhere outside the box. The ground state wavefunction should be sqrt(2/L)sin(Pi*x/L).
The Attempt at a Solution
First I determined how we would renormalize the wavefunction in the new box, which extends from -L to L. So, I integrated [tex] \int_{-L}^{L} A^2 sin^2\left(\frac{n \pi x}{2L}\right) dx[/tex] and got the new wavefunctions to be [tex] \sqrt{\frac{1}{L}} sin{\frac{n \pi x}{2L}} [/tex].
Now if I understand correctly, the probabilty of finding the particle in the new ground state is simply the square of the projection of this new state vector onto the old ground state vector. So I then integrated [tex]\int_{-L}^{L} \sqrt{\frac{2}{L}} sin\left(\frac{\pi x}{L}\right) \sqrt{\frac{1}{L}} sin\left(\frac{\pi x}{2L}\right) dx = \frac{8 \sqrt{2}}{3 \pi}[/tex].
If you square this, it's correct except for the square root of two (which makes my prob. off by a factor of 2!).
The extra [tex] \sqrt{2} [/tex] is driving me crazy! What am I doing wrong?