Natural relationship between classical orbits and quantum Hamiltonians for the Kepler problem
Central force problems involve coupled linear differential equations of motion. By decoupling the differential equations, we show how to efficiently solve for the orbits of the Kepler problem without any complicated integrals. Introducing quantization provides a deep connection between the solution for these classical orbits and the quantum Hamiltonian of hydrogen for states that have definite total angular momentum.
Authors
- J. K. Freericks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6232-9165)
- Leanne Doughty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1886-1419)
- Jason Tran (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0280-3400)
Institutions
- Georgetown University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- American Journal of Physics
- Published
- 2025-04-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0220799
- Primary Topic
- Astro and Planetary Science
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Georgetown University
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research