Basic Separation of Variables
HI
You have not mentioned the situation for which you want the solution. So I am assuming that you are interested in getting the standard one,
<br />
\nabla^2 \psi + \frac{8\pi^{2}m}{h^{2}} (E-V)\psi = 0<br />
Here, E is the total particle energy, V is the potential energy, psi is the wavefunction for the particle, m is its mass, h is the Planck Constant.
Steps
We wish to write the wave equation for a particle, so generally, it is
<br />
\nabla^2 \psi = \frac{1}{v^{2}} \frac{\partial^2{\psi}}{\partial{t}^2}
This is the starting point for all our computations. Now, in order to separate the time dependent parts (containing t) and the time-independent parts (containing x,y,z) we perform a technique called Separation of Variables. It is more generally used to solve partial differential equations.
We write the total wavefunction as a product of two wavefunctions--one dependent only on spatial coordinates (x,y,z) and not on time and the other dependent only on time and not on (x,y,z).
<br />
\psi_{(xyzt)} = \psi_{(xyz)}g(t)<br />
Now clearly g(t) must be solely time dependent, so for the sake of convenience, we usually write
<br />
g(t) = g_{0}e^{2 \pi i \nu t} \qquad \mbox{where i = \sqrt{-1}} \qquad \mbox{g_{0} = const.}<br />
Note that g(t) is the most general complex function depending only on time.
Substitute the (assumed) expression for the total wavefunction (including g(t) as a product) in the wave equation. Note that the laplacian is a space operator only (contains only space coordinates) and so g(t) remains unaffected by it. After a little bit of algebraic manipulations which should now be clear, you get
<br />
\nabla^{2}\psi_{(xyz)} = -\frac{4 \pi^{2}\nu^{2}}{v^{2}}\psi_{(xyz)}<br />
If the particle analog of the expression,
<br />
c = \lambda \nu<br />
that is,
<br />
v = \lambda \nu = \frac{h\nu}{p}<br />
is substituted for v in the above wave equation, it becomes
<br />
\nabla^{2}\psi_{(xyz)} = -\frac{4 \pi^{2}p^{2}}{h^{2}}\psi_{(xyz)}<br />
The linear momentum of the particle p, is related to the kinetic energy T as
<br />
T = \frac{1}{2}mv^{2} = \frac{p^{2}}{2m}<br />
Substituting for p into the equation and writing the kinetic energy T as (E-V) where E is the total energy of the particle and V is its potential energy, the wave equation becomes
<br />
\nabla^2 \psi + \frac{8\pi^{2}m}{h^{2}} (E-V)\psi = 0<br />
(This psi depends only on space coordinates, the (xyz) subscripts dropped.)
This is the time independent form of the Schroedinger Wave Equation. The algorithm for obtaining it is stated thus:
1. Consider the general wave equation in terms of the velocity of the particle.
2. Write the total wavefunction as a product of two wavefunctions, one containing space coordinates only and the other containing time only. Simply to remove the time dependence.
3. Use De-broglie's Relation to introduce particle character.
4. Write T in terms of p.
5. Replace T by E-V.
6. Bingo!
Hope that helps...
Cheers
Vivek