Osnabrück 2002 – scientific programme
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Q: Quantenoptik
Q 513: Quanteneffekte IV
Q 513.4: Talk
Friday, March 8, 2002, 14:45–15:00, HS 11/215
On the concepts of radial and angular kinetic energies — •Jens Peder Dahl1,2 and Wolfgang P. Schleich2 — 1Chemical Physics, Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, DTU 207, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Dänemark — 2Abteilung für Quantenphysik, Universität Ulm, D-89069 Ulm, Deutschland
We consider a general central-field system in D dimensions and show that the division of the kinetic energy into radial and angular parts proceeds differently in the wavefunction picture and the Weyl-Wigner phase-space picture. Thus, the radial and angular kinetic energies are different quantities in the two pictures, containing different physical information, but the relation between them is well defined. We discuss this relation and illustrate its nature by examples referring to a free particle and to a hydrogen atom. For the hydrogen-atom ground state we find the remarkable result that the kinetic energy is purely radial in the wavefunction picture, and purely angular in the phase-space picture. This finding, which relates to arbitrary dimensions, reflects the great difference in the kind of intuition one may apply within the two pictures.