next up previous contents
Next: Quantum Pinball (25 pts) Up: No Title Previous: Contents

Spreading of the Gaussian Wave Packet (25 pts)

Re-derive the result shown in class, that the minimum uncertainty tex2html_wrap_inline374 in the position of a particle at time t grows as

displaymath378

Verify explicitly that this result holds exactly in the case of the wave packet in problem 2.4 (problem 4 of PS # 2) if we define tex2html_wrap_inline380 as the variance in the expected position of detection of particles, defined according to

displaymath382

(We take tex2html_wrap_inline384 here because it is tex2html_wrap_inline386 which in 8.03 gives us the intensity or brightness.)



Prof. Tomas Alberto Arias
Thu Feb 20 10:59:50 EST 1997