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Second Edition
This page intentionally left blank
 Lectures on
Quantum Mechanics
Second Edition

Ashok Das
University of Rochester, USA

World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TA I P E I • CHENNAI
 Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

First edition was published by HBA in 2003.

LECTURES ON QUANTUM MECHANICS

Second Edition
Copyright © 2012 Hindustan Book Agency (HBA)
Authorized edition by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. for exclusive distribution worldwide except India.

The distribution rights for print copies of the book for India remain with Hindustan Book Agency (HBA).

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to
be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.

ISBN-13 978-981-4374-38-5
ISBN-10 981-4374-38-5

Printed in India, bookbinding made in Singapore.

Lakshmi - Lectures on Quantum Mechanics.pmd

1 8/18/2011, 8:37 AM
 To
Mama, Papa, Litu
Burma, Jagu, Balu,
Ulfi and Gumlee
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

1 Review of classical mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Newton’s equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Lagrangian approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Principle of least action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Hamiltonian formalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Review of essential mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Linear vector spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Inner product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3 Dirac notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4 Linear operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Adjoint of an operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.6 Eigenvectors and eigenvalues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.7 Infinite dimensional vector spaces . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.8 Dirac delta function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.9 Properties of the Dirac delta function. . . . . . . . . 41
2.10 Representations of the Dirac delta function . . . . . 43
2.11 Operators in infinite dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.12 Fourier transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.13 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3 Basics of quantum mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.1 Inadequacies of classical mechanics . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2 Postulates of quantum mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.3 Expectation value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.4 Uncertainty principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.5 Ehrenfest theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.6 Stationary state solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.7 Continuity equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.8 Schrödinger picture and Heisenberg picture . . . . . 85
3.9 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

i
ii Contents

4 Simple applications of Schrödinger equation. . . . . . . . . 89

4.1 Free particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.2 Infinite square well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.3 Finite square well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.4 Parity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
4.5 Penetration of a barrier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.6 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5 Harmonic oscillator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.1 Harmonic oscillator in one dimension . . . . . . . . . 109
5.2 Matrix formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.3 Solution of the Schrödinger equation . . . . . . . . . 121
5.4 Hermite polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.5 Discussion of the results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.6 Density matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.7 Planck’s law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.8 Oscillator in higher dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
5.9 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6 Symmetries and their consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6.1 Symmetries in classical mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . 149
6.2 Symmetries in quantum mechanics . . . . . . . . . . 154
6.3 Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6.4 Parity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
6.5 Rotations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
6.6 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
7 Angular momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.1 Rotations in three dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.2 Finite rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
7.3 Reducible and irreducible spaces . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.4 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8 Schrödinger equation in higher dimensions . . . . . . . . . 197
8.1 Spherically symmetric potential . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.2 Generating function for Legendre polynomials . . . . 207
8.3 Parity of spherical harmonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
8.4 Behavior of the radial solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
8.5 3-dimensional isotropic oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . 217
8.6 Square well potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
8.7 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Contents iii

9 Hydrogen atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

9.1 Relative motion of two particles . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
9.2 Hydrogen atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.3 Fundamental quantities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
9.3.1 Comparison with experiment . . . . . . . . . . 250
9.4 Dynamical symmetry in hydrogen . . . . . . . . . . . 252
9.5 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
10 Approximate methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
10.1 Variational method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
10.2 Harmonic oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
10.3 Hydrogen atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
10.4 Ground state of helium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
10.5 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
11 WKB approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.1 WKB method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
11.2 Connection formulae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
11.3 Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition . . . . . . . 298
11.4 Applications of the quantization condition . . . . . . 300
11.5 Penetration of a barrier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
11.6 Applications of tunneling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
11.7 Energy splitting due to tunneling . . . . . . . . . . . 318
11.8 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
12 Stationary perturbation theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
12.1 Non-degenerate perturbation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
12.2 Ground state of hydrogen and the Stark effect . . . . 332
12.3 Ground state of helium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
12.4 Near degenerate systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
12.5 Degenerate perturbation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
12.6 Doubly degenerate level and resonance . . . . . . . . 343
12.7 Stark effect of the first excited state of hydrogen . . 345
12.8 Fine structure of hydrogen levels . . . . . . . . . . . 347
12.9 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
13 Time dependent perturbation theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
13.1 Harmonic and constant perturbations. . . . . . . . . 362
13.2 Long perturbation at resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
13.3 Transition from a discrete level to continuum . . . . 368
13.4 Ionization of hydrogen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
13.5 Adiabatic changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
13.6 Sudden changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
13.7 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
iv Contents

14 Spin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
14.1 Complete Hilbert space for the electron . . . . . . . 386
14.2 Identical particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
14.3 General discussion of groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
14.4 Addition of angular momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
14.5 Clebsch-Gordan coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
14.6 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
15 Scattering theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
15.1 Laboratory frame and the center of mass frame . . . 416
15.2 Quantum theory of scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
15.3 Resonance scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
15.4 Examples of scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
15.5 Inelastic scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
15.6 Generalized optical theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
15.7 Integral equations for scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
15.8 Green’s functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
15.9 Validity of the Born approximation . . . . . . . . . . 457
15.10 Coulomb scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
15.11 Scattering of identical particles . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
15.12 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
16 Relativistic one particle equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
16.1 Klein-Gordon equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
16.2 Dirac equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
16.3 Continuity equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
16.4 Dirac’s hole theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
16.5 Spin of the electron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
16.6 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
17 Path integral quantum mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
17.1 Free particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
17.2 Equivalence with Schrödinger equation . . . . . . . . 505
17.3 Harmonic oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
17.4 Selected problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Preface

Over the years, I have taught a two semester graduate course as well
as a similar two semester undergraduate course on quantum mechan-
ics at the University of Rochester. The present book follows that
material almost word-for-word. I have not attempted to polish the
writing, and these lecture notes, therefore, reflect the informality of
the class room. In fact, I even considered presenting the material in
the original format, but lectures have a way of ending and starting in
the middle of a topic, which is neither very appropriate nor expected
for a book. Nonetheless, the subject is presented exactly in the order
it was taught in class.
Some of the material is repeated in places, but this was deemed
important for clarifying the lectures. The book is self-contained, in
the sense that most of the steps in the development of the subject
are derived in detail, and integrals are either evaluated or listed when
needed. I believe that a motivated student can work through the
notes independently and without difficulty. Throughout the book, I
have followed the convention of representing three dimensional vec-
tors by bold-faced symbols.
In preparing lectures for the course, I relied, at least partially,
on the material contained in the following texts:

1. A. Das and A. C. Melissinos, “Quantum Mechanics: A Modern

Introduction”, Gordon and Breach, New York (1986).

2. L. I. Schiff, “Quantum Mechanics”, McGraw-Hill, New York

(1968).

3. R. Shankar, “Principles of Quantum Mechanics”, Plenum, New

York (1980).

Several of my colleagues at Rochester and at other universities,

as well as many of my students, have influenced the development of

v
vi

these lectures. Most important were, of course, the excellent ques-

tions raised by students in class and during private discussions. I
sincerely appreciate everyone’s input.
The lecture notes were originally typed in LATEX by Judy Mack,
who deserves a lot of credit for her professionalism and sense of per-
fection. The present format of the book in LATEX is largely due to the
meticulous work of Dr. Alex Constandache, who succeeded in giving
it a more “user friendly” appearance. Most of the figures were drawn
using PSTricks, while a few were done using Gnuplot.
It is also a pleasure to thank the editors of the TRiPS series, as
well as the publisher, for being so accommodating to all my requests
in connection with the book.
Finally, I thank the members of my family, and in particular my
younger sister Jhilli, for patient support and understanding during
the completion of this work in Orissa, India.
Ashok Das
Rochester

Preface to the second edition

The modifications in this second edition of the book arose mainly

from the requests by various readers. Several typos in the earlier
version have been fixed and the presentation made clearer at some
places. The figures now carry captions with references to them in the
text. In addition to the numerous exercises that were already present
in the text, I have now included a few selected problems at the end
of every chapter in the present edition. Schrödinger equation with a
periodic potential and Bloch functions are discussed in the chapter on
symmetries (chapter 6) as an example of finite translation symmetry
in quantum mechanics.
Ashok Das
Rochester
Chapter 1

Review of classical mechanics

In this lecture, let us review some of the essential features of classical

mechanics which we will use in the study of quantum mechanics.

1.1 Newton’s equation

Let us consider a particle of mass m, moving in 1-dimension, which

is subjected to a force F . Then, from Newton’s law, we know that
ma = F, (1.1)
where a denotes the acceleration of the particle. This is known as
Newton’s equation. If x denotes the coordinate of the particle, then,
defining its potential energy as (we have chosen the reference point
to be the origin for simplicity)
Zx
V (x) = − dx′ F (x′ ), (1.2)
0

we can write Newton’s equation, (1.1), also as

d2 x dV
m =F =− . (1.3)
dt2 dx
This is a second order differential equation and can be solved uniquely
provided we are given two initial conditions, namely, the position of
the particle, x0 at t = 0 as well as its initial velocity ẋ0 . In such a
case, we can determine the trajectory of the particle, x(t), uniquely.

1.2 Lagrangian approach

Another way of looking at the same problem is to define a scalar

(scalar under Lorentz transformations) called the Lagrangian as
L = T − V ≡ L(x, ẋ), (1.4)

1
2 1 Review of classical mechanics

where T and V represent, respectively, the kinetic and the potential

energies of the particle. The Lagrangian may, in principle, also have
explicit time dependence. However, we will not consider such systems
in our discussions.
The integral of the Lagrangian along a trajectory defines an
action associated with the Lagrangian for that particular trajectory,
namely,

Ztf
S[x] = dt L(x, ẋ). (1.5)
ti

The square bracket is written to emphasize the fact that the action,
S, is a function of a function. In mathematical language S is said to
be a functional of x. As one can easily see, the value of the action
depends on the path or the trajectory (see Fig. 1.1) along which the
integration is carried out.
x

tf
ti

Figure 1.1: A trajectory between the initial time ti and the final time
tf .

1.3 Principle of least action

The principle of least action says that the actual trajectory, which
the particle follows, is such that the action associated with the La-
grangian along that trajectory is a minimum. In fact, what is strictly
true is that the action is an extremum along the actual trajectory.
In most familiar cases, however, it happens to be the minimum and
hence the name. But there are situations where it can be a maximum
as well.
1.3 Principle of least action 3

Consequences. Suppose we have a function f (x) which has a mini-

mum (extremum) at x0 as shown in Fig. 1.2. This clearly implies that
the slope of the function at x0 must be zero. What this means is that

f (x)

|
x0 x

Figure 1.2: A function f (x) with a minimum at x0 .

if we displace the function infinitesimally away from its minimum, we

will obtain, from a Taylor expansion of the function,
df
f (x0 + η) = f (x0 ) + η + O(η 2 ),
dx x0

or, δf = f (x0 + η) − f (x0 ) = 0, (1.6)

to the lowest order in the displacement. Namely, the function is
stationary at its minimum against infinitesimal displacements.
Let us now apply the same ideas to the case of the action. Let
xcl (t) be the actual trajectory of the particle, also known as the clas-
sical trajectory, which minimizes the action. Let η(t) represent an
infinitesimal displacement from the classical trajectory shown in Fig.
1.3. However, since in this case the end points of the trajectory are
held fixed, the displacement has to satisfy the constraints
η(ti ) = η(tf ) = 0. (1.7)
The infinitesimal change in the action is given by
δS = S[xcl + η] − S[xcl ]

Ztf
= dt [L (xcl + η, ẋcl + η̇) − L (xcl , ẋcl )]
ti

Ztf " #
∂L ∂L 2
= dt η + η̇ + O(η )
∂x xcl ∂ ẋ xcl
ti
4 1 Review of classical mechanics

x
xcl
tf
ti

Figure 1.3: An infinitesimal change from the classical trajectory xcl .

Ztf    
∂L d ∂L d ∂L
= dt η + η −η + O(η 2 )
∂x dt ∂ ẋ dt ∂ ẋ xcl
ti

! Ztf  
tf
∂L ∂L d ∂L
= η + dt η − + O(η 2 ). (1.8)
∂ ẋ xcl ti ∂x dt ∂ ẋ xcl
ti

The first term, on the right hand side of (1.8) vanishes because of
(1.7), namely,

η(ti ) = η(tf ) = 0.

Furthermore, we recognize from the previous example (see (1.6)) that

the action functional must be stationary at its minimum. Thus, to
the lowest order, we obtain

Ztf  
∂L d ∂L
δS = 0 = dt η − . (1.9)
∂x dt ∂ ẋ xcl
ti

Since η(t) is an arbitrary function, the only way (1.9) can be satisfied
is if
 
∂L d ∂L
− = 0. (1.10)
∂x dt ∂ ẋ xcl

In other words, the actual trajectory of the particle, xcl , must satisfy

∂L d ∂L
− = 0. (1.11)
∂x dt ∂ ẋ
1.3 Principle of least action 5

This is known as the Euler-Lagrange equation of motion for the the-

ory described by the action (1.5) and xcl is a solution of this equation.
So far, we have talked about particles in one dimension. For
a particle in n dimensions, with coordinates xi , i = 1, 2, . . . , n, the
Euler-Lagrange equations can be shown to have the form
∂L d ∂L
i
− = 0. (1.12)
∂x dt ∂ ẋi

Connection with Newtonian mechanics. Let us consider the familiar

example of the 1-dimensional particle in motion. Then, we have
1
T = mẋ2 , V = V (x),
2
so that
1
L = T − V = mẋ2 − V (x), (1.13)
2
which leads to
∂L ∂V ∂L
=− , = mẋ. (1.14)
∂x ∂x ∂ ẋ
The Euler-Lagrange (E-L) equation, (1.11), in this case, has the form,
∂V d
− − (mẋ) = 0,
∂x dt
d2 x ∂V
or, m 2
=− . (1.15)
dt ∂x
Thus, we see that the Euler-Lagrange equation of motion actually
gives rise to Newton’s equation and is equivalent to it.
In discussions so far, we have assumed that L = T − V and that
the potential energy depends only on the position and not on the
velocity. However, there are physical situations where the force does
depend on the velocity. A familiar example is the force experienced
by a charged particle moving in a magnetic field,
q
F= v × B, (1.16)
c
where q denotes the charge of the particle and c is the speed of light in
vacuum. In such cases, to obtain the correct equations of motion, one
has to introduce a velocity dependent generalized potential energy.
For example, for the case of a charged particle with electromagnetic
6 1 Review of classical mechanics

interactions, we have (we are assuming here that the particle experi-
ences both an electric as well as a magnetic force)
1 q
L = T − U = mv · v − qΦ + v · A, (1.17)
2 c
where Φ represents the scalar potential while A is the vector potential
and they are related to the electric and the magnetic fields through
1 ∂A
E = −∇Φ − ,
c ∂t
B = ∇ × A. (1.18)
Exercise. Work out the equation of motion for the particle, starting from the
Lagrangian (1.17), namely, derive the Euler-Lagrange equations for such a particle.

It is clear, however, that the generalized potential energy U in

(1.17) can not be interpreted as the potential energy of the particle,
since the magnetic force does not do any work, being perpendicular
to the velocity. Therefore, in general situations, it is improper to
divide the Lagrangian into kinetic and potential energy terms. It is
rather assumed that the Lagrangian, as a single entity, is a function
of the position and the velocity, L = L(x, ẋ).

Advantages of the Lagrangian approach. We may ask at this point

whether one gains anything by following this approach since, in the
end, it seems to lead to the same Newton’s equations of motion. The
simple answer to this is that there are several nice features in the
Lagrangian approach. First of all, the Lagrangian is a scalar and is,
therefore, much easier to handle, in general, than vectors and tensors.
Second, the Lagrangian gives rise to equations of motion which
have the same form independent of the coordinate system being used.
We can easily convince ourselves of this by recognizing that nowhere,
in the derivation of the equations from the principle of least action,
did we utilize the fact that the coordinates are Cartesian. Thus, in
terms of generalized coordinates q i and q̇ i , i = 1, 2, . . . n, we can write
L ≡ L(q i , q̇ i ) and the Euler-Lagrange equations take the forms
 
d ∂L ∂L
i
= i. (1.19)
dt ∂ q̇ ∂q

Here q i can represent the coordinates of a particle in the Cartesian,

or the polar or in any other coordinate system. This has to be con-
trasted with Newton’s equations where the equations take very dif-
ferent forms in different coordinates.
1.3 Principle of least action 7

We can try to bring these equations, (1.19), as close to New-

ton’s equations as is possible by defining the generalized conjugate
momentum
∂L
pi = , (1.20)
∂ q̇ i
and the generalized force
∂L
Fi = . (1.21)
∂q i
Then, equation (1.19) becomes
dpi
= Fi . (1.22)
dt
Although the Euler-Lagrange equations take the same form in any
coordinate system, we should always remember that, in general, pi
does not represent the momentum of the particle, and neither is Fi
the force acting on it. In fact, if q i (for a fixed i) corresponds to
an angular variable θ, then the corresponding pi would represent an
angular momentum (component) of the particle and, similarly, Fi
would denote the torque acting on it.
In the Lagrangian approach it is also easy to recognize quantities
that are conserved. For example, if the Lagrangian is independent of a
particular coordinate, then we say that the corresponding coordinate
is a cyclic variable and the momentum conjugate to such a variable
is conserved. This can be seen as follows. If q i (for a fixed i) is cyclic,
∂L
then, ∂q i = 0 and from the Euler-Lagrange equation, (1.19), we have

(for the particular i)

d ∂L dpi ∂L
i
= = i = 0. (1.23)
dt ∂ q̇ dt ∂q
Hence pi (for the particular i) is conserved. In Newtonian mechanics,
if a Cartesian coordinate is cyclic the corresponding momentum is
also conserved. However, the situation in the case of the Lagrangian
is more general.
◮ Example. Let us now illustrate these with an example. Consider a particle
moving in a plane (2 dimensions) and subjected to a force.
1
L= m(ẋ2 + ẏ 2 ) − V (x, y). (1.24)
2
We also assume that the functional form of the potential is such that it depends
only on the length of the vector. Thus,
V (x, y) = V (x2 + y 2 ). (1.25)
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