- #1
Beer-monster
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Not usre if this could have gone in the maths section as its a maths question based on a physics problem.
I'm trying to get to grips with the Rayleigh-Ritz variational method by trying a few examples from the books myself. The first was to try and recreate the solution of the infinite potential well.
I chose as directed the trial function
[tex] \gamma = (a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2) [/tex]
where a is the width of the well from the origin (so the well is 2a wide in total) and c is a parameter which can be changed later.
The next step is to calculate the Energyfunction, unfortuantely that requires calculating:
[tex]\frac {\int (a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2) \frac{d^2}{dx^2}(a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2)dx}{\int(a^2-x^2)^2(1-cx^2)^2dx}[/tex]
I can calculate the differential using the product rule to get
[tex] 2c(a^2-x^2) - 8cx^2 - (1+cx^2) [/tex]
uh ...I think (not sure about the middle term)
But after that I'm unsure how to procede in the numerator, trying by parts at the start usually leads to more chain rule derivations and more itegrals by parts and never seems to get me anywhere. I can't think of a suitable substitution to integrate with. Expanding all the factors leads to a huge string of numbers that is hard to keep track of.
Anyone have any clue they can lend me
Thanks
I'm trying to get to grips with the Rayleigh-Ritz variational method by trying a few examples from the books myself. The first was to try and recreate the solution of the infinite potential well.
I chose as directed the trial function
[tex] \gamma = (a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2) [/tex]
where a is the width of the well from the origin (so the well is 2a wide in total) and c is a parameter which can be changed later.
The next step is to calculate the Energyfunction, unfortuantely that requires calculating:
[tex]\frac {\int (a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2) \frac{d^2}{dx^2}(a^2-x^2)(1-cx^2)dx}{\int(a^2-x^2)^2(1-cx^2)^2dx}[/tex]
I can calculate the differential using the product rule to get
[tex] 2c(a^2-x^2) - 8cx^2 - (1+cx^2) [/tex]
uh ...I think (not sure about the middle term)
But after that I'm unsure how to procede in the numerator, trying by parts at the start usually leads to more chain rule derivations and more itegrals by parts and never seems to get me anywhere. I can't think of a suitable substitution to integrate with. Expanding all the factors leads to a huge string of numbers that is hard to keep track of.
Anyone have any clue they can lend me
Thanks
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