Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IB, 2010
A (a particle of the same charge as the electron but 270 times more massive) is bound in the Coulomb potential of a proton. Assuming that the wave function has the form , where and are constants, determine the normalized wave function of the lowest energy state of the , assuming it to be an -wave (i.e. the state with ). (You should treat the proton as fixed in space.)
Calculate the probability of finding the inside a sphere of radius in terms of the ratio , and show that this probability is given by if is very small. Would the result be larger or smaller if the were in a -wave state? Justify your answer very briefly.
[Hint: in spherical polar coordinates,