Paper 4, Section I, D
The radial wavefunction for an electron in a hydrogen atom satisfies the equation
Briefly explain the origin of each term in this equation.
The wavefunctions for the ground state and the first radially excited state, both with , can be written as
where and are normalisation constants. Verify that is a solution of , determining and finding the corresponding energy eigenvalue . Assuming that is a solution of , compare coefficients of the dominant terms when is large to determine the corresponding energy eigenvalue . [You do not need to find or , nor show that is a solution of
A hydrogen atom makes a transition from the first radially excited state to the ground state, emitting a photon. What is the angular frequency of the emitted photon?