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Journal of Chemical Education

Monte Carlo Approach to Generating the Probability-Distribution Function of a Classical Harmonic Oscillator

Robert A. Craig, Stephen W. Bigger

Published Aug 1, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A comparison of the classical and quantum mechanical descriptions of a simple harmonic oscillator is made with particular regard to its probability distribution function. A simple BASIC computer program is presented which gives students a clear understanding of the probability distribution and serves as an introductory example of the Monte Carlo method of numerical modelling.

DOI
10.1021/ed073p724

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A comparison of the classical and quantum mechanical descriptions of a simple harmonic oscillator is made with particular regard to its probability distribution function. A simple BASIC computer program is presented which gives students a clear understanding of the probability distribution and serves as an introductory example of the Monte Carlo method of numerical modelling.
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In this short paper, a very brief introduction of the quantum harmonic oscillator has been provided. The understanding of the transition from a classically damped oscillator and the quantum mechanical model of the latter is included via a clear mathematics involving simple calculus. Only the one dimensional time dependent Schrodinger’s equation is being studied. This paper is intended to simply provide an analytical description of the subject, there are no advance calculations implying further suggestions in quantum theory.
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An earlier study of quantum-mechanical time has suggested that, from the quantum-theoretic point of view, time is a random variable. The present work explores how such a description of time can be used to bring greater detail into the analysis of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator. Specifically, the classical equations for harmonic motion are used as a point transformation between phase space and time-energy space, permitting probability distributions in the two spaces to be different representations of the same thing. The familiar energy-quantization hypothesis is supplemented with the hypothesis that quantized energy values are means (averages) of energy distributions characteristic of each energy state. With the probability distribution of time determined from the previously cited study, the desired quantized energy distributions follow from the requirements: (1) that they should be normalized, non-negative, and with means equal to the quantized energy values; (2) that the equivalent representation of distribution in position-momentum space should have marginal densities that are proportional (except near the origin) to the densities in position and momentum, ${|\ensuremath{\phi}(q)|}^{2}$ and ${|\ensuremath{\psi}(p)|}^{2}$, which are postulated in quantum theory. Requirement (2) is a weakening of the Born postulate. In the time-energy space, the probability distributions exclude energies smaller than the mode (energy value with maximum probability). In position-momentum space this exclusion requirement becomes the dynamical restriction: $\frac{{q}^{2}m{\ensuremath{\omega}}^{2}}{2}+\frac{{p}^{2}}{2m}\ensuremath{\ge}\frac{{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{n}\ensuremath{\hbar}\ensuremath{\omega}}{2}$, where, for the first three energy states, ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{0}=0$, ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{1}=\frac{3}{2}$, ${\ensuremath{\Lambda}}_{2}=2+\ensuremath{\surd}\frac{3}{2}$. In general terms it is thus shown that the quantized harmonic oscillator can be described as a statistical ensemble of classical oscillators. Some comparisons with work on phase-space formulations of quantum mechanics (especially with the work of Wigner) are made and some aspects of the theory that should submit to experimental verification are pointed out.