Quick question on notation of the Hamiltonian

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter rwooduk
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Hamiltonian Notation
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 1K views
rwooduk
Messages
757
Reaction score
59
for a degnerate system it's in my notes that you can write:

[tex]H^{(0)}\Psi _{1}=E_{0}\Psi _{1}[/tex]
[tex]H^{(0)}\Psi _{2}=E_{0}\Psi _{2}[/tex]

and (not related) we write the general Schrödinger equation

[tex]H_{0}\Psi + V\Psi = E\Psi[/tex]

Please could someone tell me what both the upper and lower zeros on the H mean?

Thanks in advance
 
Physics news on Phys.org
For the "upper zeroes", it seems to me its in the context of degenerate perturbation theory. Then that zero means its the unperturbed Hamiltonian.
For the "lower zero", the full Hamiltonian is written as the free Hamiltonian([itex]H_0[/itex]) plus a potential(interaction) part ([itex]V[/itex]).
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: rwooduk and bhobba
Shyan said:
For the "upper zeroes", it seems to me its in the context of degenerate perturbation theory. Then that zero means its the unperturbed Hamiltonian.
For the "lower zero", the full Hamiltonian is written as the free Hamiltonian([itex]H_0[/itex]) plus a potential(interaction) part ([itex]V[/itex]).

Great thanks for clearing this up!