Monday, November 25, 2019

quantum mechanics - Is there only radial motion in the Hydrogen ground state?


The ground state of the Hydrogen atom is spherically symmetric. In other words, the wave function Psi depends only on the distance r of the electron from the nucleus.


As a consequence all derivatives of Psi with respect to angles theta and phi yield zero.


Does this imply that the average kinetic energy in the ground state [which can be calculated without difficulty from the wave function] is determined exclusively by the radial motion of the electron?



If so, that would be a rather odd result. Let us say the electron is at position (x, 0, 0). Then the kinetic energy would be the result of motion either away from the nucleus (direction +x) or towards the nucleus (-x), but not from motion perpendicular to the x-axis. So in essence the motion of the electron would be 1-dimensional, like a pendulum.




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