2.II.19D
Part IB, 2004
Consider a Hamiltonian of the form
where is a real function. Show that this can be written in the form , for some real to be determined. Show that there is a wave function , satisfying a first-order equation, such that . If is a polynomial of degree , show that must be odd in order for to be normalisable. By considering show that all energy eigenvalues other than that for must be positive.
For , use these results to find the lowest energy and corresponding wave function for the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian