Physics 137A (lectures 1&3, Fall 2014): Homework #1

A.E. Charman

Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley

(Dated: 8/29/2014; Revised: 9/1/2014; DUE: 9/5/2014)
Solutions to all required (i.e., non-practice) problems are due in the Physics 137A (lectures 1&3)
box in the Physics Department Reading Room (251 LeConte) before 6 pm on FRIDAY,
September 5, 2014. Remember that you will receive points based on overall completeness,
and also for a subset of problems that will be holistically graded in detail based on content,
presentation, and analysis. Problems or parts of problems marked [PRACTICE] will not be
graded, but are suggested for extra exploration or practice if you wish. A request to show
or prove a result is meant to elicit the sort of argument that would satisfy a physicist, not
necessarily a professional mathematiciancogent, reasonably clear in its logical direction, but not
necessarily completely rigorous and explicit in all of its mathematical steps.
I. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Andys oce hours this coming week will be Wednesday 34 pm and Friday 23 pm, or by appointment.
II. READING
Required:
Read Townsend: preface, Chapter 1
Recommended:
Read the lecture notes Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces (available on bSpace).
Suggested:
Bowman: preface, Appendix A; Miller: preface, Appendix A, Appendix F (available on bSpace)
III. PROBLEMS [WEIGHT = 60]
A short-ish problem set with questions reviewing (i) some Physics 7C-level quantum theory;
and (ii) some math 54-level facts about nite-dimensional vector spaces....
1. Consider a hydrogen atom in its internal ground state, as described by the Bohr model:
(a) What is the estimated radial size of the electron orbit? What is the estimated de Broglie wavelength
of the bound electron?
(b) Estimate the orbital frequency of the electron, using a semi-classical argument (HINT: think about
the centripetal acceleration). What is the wavelength of a photon with the same frequency?
(c) Suppose the atom is ionized by absorption of a single photon. What is the maximum possible
wavelength of the photon?
(d) Suppose instead it is ionized via collision with a high speed electron. What is the maximal possible
de Broglie wavelength of the incoming electron? If you use a neutron rather than electron, what is the
maximal possible de Broglie wavelength of the incident neutron?

Electronic address: acharman@physics.berkeley.edu

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FIG. 1 Schematic of an experimental apparatus to measure the photoelectric eect.
2. In a photoelectric experiment, light sources of various frequencies can be used. The light source
can be turned on or o completely with a shutter, or its intensity varied continuously. The potential
dierence across the electrodes can be turned down until the current drops to zero, to nd the stopping
potential, or turned way up until the photo-current saturates under given lighting conditions. The metal
anode has some non-zero work function.
In each case, sketch the (i) classical prediction, and (ii) the quantum mechanical prediction, for the
indicated plot:
(a) Plot of stopping potential versus light frequency (at xed high intensity)
(b) Plot of stopping potential versus light intensity (at xed high frequency).
(c) Plot of saturated photo-current versus light frequency (at xed high intensity)
(d) Plot of saturated photo-current versus light intensity (at xed high frequency).
(e) Plot of photo-current versus time from the opening of the shutter, when the potential is accelerating,
and the light source is known to produce a photo-current in the steady state.
3. Classical physics should emerge as a limiting case of quantum mechanics. As originally articulated
by Bohr, the Correspondence Principle says that, roughly speaking, a necessary condition for quantum
mechanics to reproduce the expected classical behavior is that quantum states with very large quantum
numbers should be accessible to the system. (Later, we will rene this notion).
Adopt reasonable numerical estimates for any needed physical quantities below, using the internet as
needed, and briey justify your choices:
(a) Imagine a basketball spinning on the nger of an NBA point guard. Estimate the moment of inertia,
the angular velocity, and from these the angular momentum of the ball. Express this angular momentum
as a multiple of the reduced Planks constant .
(b) Imagine a child on a swing in a playground. Estimate the energy of the child, and estimate her
quantum number, assuming simple harmonic motion.
(c) The earth is orbiting the sun, due to the inuence of gravity. Estimate the center-of-mass energy of
the Earth, and then the expected quantum number of the orbit, using a Bohr-like model.
(d) Imagine a car sitting at a stop light on Telegraph Avenue. Roughly estimate an RMS momentum
and RMS displacement of the center of mass of the car, and express their product as a multiple of .
(e) Imagine an electron inside a single transistor on an integrated circuit in your laptop computer, at
room temperature. Estimate the characteristic quantum number, using a particle-in-box approximation.
3
4. Using only the vector space axioms and the basic properties of complex numbers, prove the following
for any vector x in nite-dimensional complex vector space V, and any complex scalar :
(a) 0 = 0, where 0 is the zero vector in V
(b) ()x = (x) = (x)
(x) (1)x = x HINT: use the previous result.
5. [PRACTICE] In a nite-dimensional complex vector space, show that given any nite subset S V,
then any subset A span[S] with strictly more elements than S must be linearly dependent.
6. in a complex inner product space V with a norm induced by the inner product. For all x, y V:
(a) Prove the parallelogram law: x +y
2
+x y
2
= 2x
2
+ 2y
2
(b) Prove the polarization identity: x|y =
1
4

x +y
2
x y
2
+ ix + iy
2
ix iy
2

.
7. [PRACTICE] In a nite-dimensional vector space V, show that any subspace W V is nite
dimensional, and dimW V, with equality if and only if W = V.
8. [PRACTICE] Prove the following: every spanning subset of a nite-dimensional vector space V
contains at least dimV vectors, and can be trimmed to form a basis, while every linearly independent
set contains no more than dimV vectors, and can be expanded to a basis.
9. Let U V and W V be subspaces of some nite-dimensional complex vector space V:
(a) Show that U W is a subspace, and is in fact the largest subspace contained within both U and W.
(b) Show by an explicit counterexample that U W is not necessarily a subspace.
10. [PRACTICE] Prove that if W V is a subspace of a nite-dimensional inner product space V, then
V = W W