Consider an harmonic oscillator with spring constant k and mass m. - Find the cl
ID: 2013100 • Letter: C
Question
Consider an harmonic oscillator with spring constant k and mass m.- Find the classical frequency of this oscillator as a function of the spring constant and
m.
In quantum mechanics, the spectrum of possible energies for this oscillator is given by:
En = hf (n + 1/2) where n is a natural number: n = 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., h is Planck’s constant
and f is the frequency.
- Find the ground state energy as a function of the spring constant and the mass.
- What is the di?erence of energy between the second excited state and the ground
state?
- Assume now that the oscillator carries a unit of charge, what is the wavelength of
the photon emitted as a function of k and m when the oscillator goes from the ?rst
excited state down to the ground state?
- What is the wavelength of the emitted photon of the previous question if k = 10eV /°A
2
,
where °A denotes Angstrom and eV: electron volt. Is the emitted photon in the visible
spectrum of a human eye?