Closed-form Second Solutions to the Coulombic Schr\"odinger Equation

arXiv1909.06925MaRDI QIDQ6325351FDOQ6325351

Publication date: 15 September 2019

Abstract: The regular solutions to the Sch"ordinger equation in the case of an electron experiencing a Coulomb force are well known. Being that the radial part of the differential equation to be solved is second order in derivatives, it will have two independent solutions, with the second irregular solutions being ill-behaved at the origin and unbound at infinity. For this reason, second solutions are dropped for bound electrons. However, these second solutions are still of academic interest for several reasons. One reason is to help devise schemes to control numerical contamination by second solutions to more general second-order differential equations when attempting to calculate the first solutions through recursion relations. Another is to study the analytic behavior of the electron Coulomb wave functions as the electron energy and angular momentum are each extended into the complex plane, important in investigations of bound-state poles and of Regge trajectories. In addition, toy problems having a finite radial region with a Coulombic interaction, with interior and exterior regions non Coulombic, require both regular and irregular solutions to match solutions across the boundaries. In this presentation, exact and closed form second irregular solutions are derived for the Coulomb bound states, using a hither-to unnoticed trick in the Nikiforov-Uvorov method.

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