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American Journal of Physics

The hydrogen atom in one dimension

R.E. Moss

Published May 1, 1987• 57 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Schrödinger, Klein–Gordon, and Dirac equations for the hydrogen atom are solved in D dimensions, where D may be noninteger. For D=1 the nondegenerate ground state with infinite binding energy is obtained as a limit as D tends to 1 for the Schrödinger equation. The corresponding solution of the Klein–Gordon equation is shown to be unacceptable, contradicting previous work. Unexpectedly, no bound state solutions of the Dirac equation with D=1 are found at all. A few comments are made on the D=3 and 2 cases.

DOI
10.1119/1.15144

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The Schrödinger, Klein–Gordon, and Dirac equations for the hydrogen atom are solved in D dimensions, where D may be noninteger. For D=1 the nondegenerate ground state with infinite binding energy is obtained as a limit as D tends to 1 for the Schrödinger equation. The corresponding solution of the Klein–Gordon equation is shown to be unacceptable, contradicting previous work. Unexpectedly, no bound state solutions of the Dirac equation with D=1 are found at all. A few comments are made on the D=3 and 2 cases.
In the scientific community dominates the conviction that the hydrogen atom is the simplest, and existing theories based on equations of Schrodinger and Dirac fully describe all the subtleties of behavior of an electron in a hydrogen atom. In this paper and in the following articles will be shown that in addition to the known state-based solutions of the Schrodinger and Dirac equations, there are states which were not studied and they were not known, or often simply were discarded with the phrase have no physical meaning. Further it will be shown that the existing equations of quantum mechanics, namely the Dirac equation, Klein-Gordon equation and especially the Schrodinger equation, can not accurately describe all the subtleties of behavior of an electron in a hydrogen atom. As a result there will be given a reasonable basis for the feasibility of an experimental search or targeted synthesis of new unknown states of the hydrogen atom.
The theory of the one-dimensional (1D) hydrogen atom was initiated by a 1952 paper but, after more than 60 years, it remains a topic of debate and controversy. The aim here is a critique of the current status of the theory and its relation to relevant experiments. A 1959 solution of the Schrödinger equation by the use of a cut-off at x = a to remove the singularity at the origin in the 1/| x | form of the potential is clarified and a mistaken approximation is identified. The singular atom is not found in the real world but the theory with cut-off has been applied successfully to a range of four practical three-dimensional systems confined towards one dimension, particularly their observed large increases in ground state binding energy. The true 1D atom is in principle restored when the short distance a tends to zero but it is sometimes claimed that the solutions obtained by the limiting procedure differ from those obtained by solution of the basic Schrödinger equation without any cut-off in the potential. The treatment of the singularity by a limiting procedure for applications to practical systems is endorsed.
In a previous note, the nonrelativistic bound state wavefunction W(x) was written as Wo(x)W1(x) with Wo(x) being the ground state wavefunction. W1(x) satisfies an eigenvalue equation, similar to the Schrodinger equation, but with the potential term replaced with a coupling term: -1/2m d/dx d/dx W1(x) - 1/m d/dx W1(x) [ d/dx Wo(x)/Wo(x) ] = (E-Eo) W1 (x) ((1)) Mathematically, ((1)) may be compared to the hypergeometric differential equation and solutions found for the Schrodinger if coefficients meet certain criteria. A similar approach applies to the Klein Gordon and Dirac equations In this note, we wish to examine possible physical significance of Wo(x)W1(x). In addition, we wish to obtain an equation, analogous to ((1)) for both the Klein Gordon and Dirac equations to compare the coupling terms.
When the Dirac equation was first published in 1928, three solutions appeared immediately within the same year, each describing the most important problem in physics at that time: the hydrogen atom. These solutions lifted some of the degeneracy from earlier atomic models, but not all of it--they still predicted the same degenerate energy levels for the 2s1/2 and 2p1/2 states, for example. In this paper, we introduce a new solution of the Dirac equation, which finally removes all degeneracy from the hydrogen atom. We work in terms of dimensionless quantities and use the Lamb shift to give each atomic state in our model a unique, nondegenerate energy level. We obtain radial eigenfunctions in terms of the Laguerre polynomials, demonstrate how they can be reduced to the Schrodinger wavefunctions by applying limits, and plot our results.
The Klein-Gordon equation describes the wave-like behavior of spinless particles since it is Lorentz invariant. While it seemed initially ripe for explaining the electronic structure of the hydrogen atom, the lack of a unconditional positive probability density really limited its applications. Yet, it is intimately connected with fermions. Any solution to the Dirac equation is automatically a solution to the Klein-Gordon equation. What is even more surprising, the Klein-Gordon equation for a free particle turns into the Schrödinger equation in the non-relativistic limit. In this work we show that these problems disappear when we use the relativistic mass instead of the rest mass. While the Klein-Gordon equation losses its Lorentz invariance because of this transformation, it gains most of the features present the Schrödinger equation, including the unconditional positivity of probability density, while keeping most of its relativistic characteristics intact, including the matter-wave dispersion relation. What is even more surprising, the non-relativistic, quasi-static limit of the Klein-Gordon equation with relativistic mass is simply the Schrödinger equation under all possible conditions. So, it can be argued that this Klein-Gordon equation is a sort of relativistic Schrödinger equation.