Department of Physics

2010 Preliminary Examination

2-5pm, May 21

Part II. Long Questions

(Answer 5 out of 7)

1. This is a 3-hour close book exam. Approved calculators may be used (nonprogrammable ones), though approximate numerical results are valid.
2. This exam is graded on 5 questions; all questions are of equal value. You need
to specify on the first page which questions should be graded if more than 5 are
attempted.
3. Write down your name and student ID on the exam booklet. Write down clearly
the question number.
4. This paper has 5 pages (including the title page)

Examiners: Hong Guo (Chair), Andrew Cumming, Michael Hilke, Sangyong Jeon, Alex
Maloney

1. Rocket firing
Consider a dumbbell shaped space station with a rocket on one side of the dumbbell
which is firing in the perpendicular direction to the dumbbell axis as shown in the figure.
Suppose the rocket exerts a constant force F on the station whose mass is 2M and the
length is 2A. For this problem, ignore the mass of the connecting rod and the mass of
the rocket including the fuel. Also ignore the size of the two masses. You may find it
easier to define and use
r1 = R + An
r2 = R An

(1)

where R is the center of mass coordinate and An = A(cos , sin , 0) are the locations
of the two identical masses relative to R.
F

r1

An

R
O

r2

An
M

(a). Show that the center of mass motion is determined by the following equation:
= F n ez
2M R

(2)

where ez is the unit vector in the z direction.

(b). Show that the total angular mometum is determined by the following equation:
= AF ez
2M A2 n n

(3)

(c). Show that the total angular momentum equation can be written as
2M = AF

(4)

and solve for (t).

(d). The long-time limit of V = dR/dt is known to be constant. Give a physical
argument why V behaves as such when the force on the system never goes to zero.

2. Elevator
Imagine you are in an elevator and start going up and down with your knees periodically.
(a) From your experience inside elevators, estimate the oscillations that you are inducing
upon the elevator. (Dont neglect damping of the elevator and use quantitative equations
in order to describe the system).
(b) From your estimates, what is the elastic constant of your elevator cable? What is
damping factor? (Use real physical units).

3. Capacitor
(a). Explain qualitatively why inserting a dielectric between two capacitor plates increases the capacitance.
(b). A coaxial cable is made of two concentric conducting cylinders which share the same
axis. The outer cylinder has radius a = 1 cm and the inner cylinder radius b = 3 mm.
The space between the cylinders is filled with a linear dielectric material, strontium
titanate, with dielectric constant r = 300. Calculate the capacitance per unit length of
this coaxial cable. The permittivity of free space is 0 = 8.85 1012 C2 /Nm2 .
(c). Strontium titanate has a dielectric strength Emax = 8 106 V m1 . What is the
maximum operating voltage of the cable?

4. Scattering
A photon of energy scatters from an electron moving with velocity v.
(a). The angle between the photon and electron directions is initially in the lab frame.
Show that the angle between the photon and electron directions in the electron rest
frame is given by
cos
cos 0 =
1 cos
where = v/c.
(b). Assume that the scattering is elastic in the rest frame of the electron, so that the
photons direction is changed, but its energy remains the same. What is the maximum
energy of the photon in the lab frame after scattering?

5. Hydrogen
Consider the following radial equation for the electron in a Hydrogen atom:

h
2 d2
+ Veff (r) un,l (r) = En,l un,l (r)

2m dr2

(5)

where
Veff (r) =

h
2 l(l + 1) e2

2mr2
r

(6)

(a). Show that the minimum of the effective potential Veff (r) occurs at rl = l(l + 1)a0
where a0 = h
2 /me2 is the Bohr radius.
(b). Show that the potential near r = rl can be approximated by
Veff (r)

e2
e2
+ 3 (r rl )2
2rl 2rl

(7)

(c). An approximate Hamiltonian near r = rl is then given by

2 d2
e2
e2 2
(0)
0 = h
H

+
x n,l (x) = En,l n,l (x)
2m dx2 2rl 2rl3

(8)

where x = r rl and n,l (x) = un,l (x + rl ). Find the ground state wavefunction of
this Hamiltonian. You may assume that the range of x is from to .
0 is given by
(d). Show or argue that the eigenvalues of H

0
En,l

1 e2
e2
+ nr +
=
2rl
2 rl

a0
rl

(e). What kind of classical Keplerian orbits correspond to small nr and large nr ?
(f). When do you think this approximation will fail?

(9)

6. Delta potentials
(a). Consider a one dimensional particle moving in a delta function potential
V (x) = v0 (x)
for some number v0 . Consider a plane wave which is incident on this potential from the
left. Compute the probability that the plane wave will be reflected back towards the
left. Does the answer depend on the sign of v0 ? Show that when v0 is large the reflection
probability approaches one. Show that the reflection probability approaches one when
the wavelength of the incident wave is very long.
(b). Consider now the case where we have two delta functions separated by distance 2L
V (x) = v0 ((x L) + (x + L))
Consider a plane wave which is incident on this potential from the left. Compute the
probability that the plane wave will be reflected back towards the left. Show that there is
a special value of L where the reflection probability approaches zero when the wavelength
of the incident wave is very long.

7. Ensemble of spin- 12 particles

When a spin 12 particle is put inside a magnetic field B, its energy level is split into B
and +B, where is the magnetic moment of this particle along the direction of B.
Now, we put N such particles into the magnetic field and keep the system at temperature
T . Neglect interactions between the particles. Using the canonical ensemble, calculate
the following quantities of the N-particle system:
(a). partition function;
(b). Helmholtz free energy;
(c). entropy;
(d). internal energy;
(e). heat capacity;
(f). total magnetic moment of the N-particle system.