Shannon Entropy for the Hydrogen Atom Confined by Four Different Potentials
Michael‐Adán Martínez‐Sánchez, Rubicelia Vargas, Jorge Garza
Spatial confinements induce localization or delocalization on the electron density in atoms and molecules, and the hydrogen atom is not the exception to these results. In previous works, this system has been confined by an infinite and a finite potential where the wave-function exhibits an exact solution, and, consequently, their Shannon entropies deliver exact results. In this article, the Shannon entropy in configuration space is examined for the hydrogen atom submitted to four different potentials: (a) infinite potential; (b) Coulomb plus harmonic oscillator; (c) constant potential; and (d) dielectric continuum. For all these potentials, the Schrödinger equation admitted an exact analytic solution, and therefore the corresponding electron density has a closed-form. From the study of these confinements, we observed that the Shannon entropy in configuration space is a good indicator of localization and delocalization of the electron density for ground and excited states of the hydrogen atom confined under these circumstances. In particular, the confinement imposed by a parabolic potential induced characteristics that were not presented for other confinements; for example, the kinetic energy exhibited oscillations when the confinement radius is varied and such oscillations coincided with oscillations showed by the Shannon entropy in configuration space. This result indicates that, when the kinetic energy is increased, the Shannon entropy is decreased and vice versa.
Quantum Reports•Nov 1, 2019•40 citations