Rotor Kaku

PARTICLE-ON-A-RING
The potential energy anywhere on the circle is defined as zero.

The motion of the particle is not separable between the x and y-axes. The problem can be made separable by transforming the coordinates from Cartesian to polar coordinates. In polar coordinates, the variables become the radius of gyration, r, and the angle, of the particle from the origin.

y = r sin

The Hamiltonian can now be written in terms of r and

Since the radius r is constant in this problem, all of the terms that involve derivatives with respect to r will be zero, reducing the Hamiltonian to just one variable,

The moment of inertia, I, of the particle, is equal to its mass times the square of the radius of gyration r. The Hamiltonian in the Equation is very similar to the Hamiltonian for the one-dimensional Particle-in-a-Box

The following wavefunction will be used: