Plane Wave: Step Scattering
General Description
This program simulates the time evolution of a free-particle plane wave in position space when it is incident on a potential energy step. The position-space wave functions are depicted using three colors on the graph:
- black: depicts the absolute square of the wave function
- blue: depicts the real part of the wave function
- red: depicts the imaginary part of the wave function
The user may change the height of the potential step or the plane wave energy by dragging circles on the energy graph. Also shown is the calculated transmission and reflection coefficients.
This simulation is part of a suite of simulations by Jose Ignacio Fernández
Palop of the University of Cordoba, Spain used to teach quantum
mechanics. Additional simulations can be found on the OSP ComPADRE site.
Controls
- Play/Pause button: plays or pauses the simulation.
- Reset button: resets the simulation.
- Energy circles: change the energy of the plane wave.
- Potential circle:
changes the height of the potential step.
Jose Ignacio Fernández Palop (fa1fepai@uco.es)