What is excursion of a potential well?

rcompton
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What is "excursion" of a potential well?

I think it means maximum depth of the well, but I've never heard this term before and I might be wrong. I don't have much of a quantum mechanics background.

Details:
I'm reading and implementing "Solution of the Schrodinger Equation by a Spectral Method" by Feit et al. They refer to delta_V as the "maximum excursion" of the potential. I interpret this to mean "minimum" of the potential, but my interpretation does not match up with the numbers they provide at the end.

EDIT: If someone could just give me the relation between the maximum depth of a potential well and the bandwidth of the energy spectrum that would solve it for me.

EDIT2: Time independent Hamiltonian.
 
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My offhand interpretation would be to assume it was the difference between the maximum and the minimum of V.
 


Yeah, that's what I think as well. But it's not lining up so I'm confused.
 


Yeah, it looks like "maximum excursion" means max(V) - min(V). They must have a typo in their paper, which is upsetting as it's J comp. physics and has ~1000 citations.
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!
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