Aren't physics integrals beautiful?

Calculus Level 3

Here's a fun little integral I found a while back. Use your tricks wisely.

exp ( i p ( x x 0 ) ) exp ( p p 0 ) d p \int _{ -\infty }^{ \infty }{ \quad \exp { \left( \cfrac { ip(x-{ x }_{ 0 }) }{ \hbar } \right) } } \exp \left( -\frac { |p| }{ { p }_{ 0 } } \right) dp

SIMPLIFY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, you'll get it wrong if you don't

2 p 0 ( p 0 ( x x 0 ) / ) 2 + 1 \frac { { 2p }_{ 0 } }{ { \left( { p }_{ 0 }(x-{ x }_{ 0 })/\hbar \right) }^{ 2 }+{ 1 } } 2 p 0 i ( p 0 ( x x 0 ) ) + \frac { 2\hbar { p }_{ 0 } }{ { { i({ p }_{ 0 }(x-{ x }_{ 0 })) } }+\hbar } p 0 ( p 0 ( x x 0 ) ) 2 \frac { { p }_{ 0 } }{ { { { (p }_{ 0 }(x-{ x }_{ 0 })) }^{ 2 } }-{ { \hbar } } } 2 R e [ p 0 ( i p 0 ( x x 0 ) ) + ] 2Re\left[ \frac { { \hbar p }_{ 0 } }{ { (i{ p }_{ 0 }(x-{ x }_{ 0 })) }+{ \hbar } } \right]

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1 solution

Discussions for this problem are now closed

Kyouhei James
Dec 10, 2014

We'll use the fact that sin ( x ) d x = 0 \int _{ -\infty }^{ \infty }{ \sin { \left( x \right) } } dx\quad =\quad 0 and also e i x = cos ( x ) + i sin ( x ) { e }^{ ix }=\cos { \left( x \right) +i\sin { \left( x \right) } }

First we see that the integrand composes of a imaginary part and a real part. However the imaginary part can be thought of as the sum of sine and cosine as shown earlier. Also, from the fact that the sin(x) is a odd function, the integral of the sin(x) term will go to zero thus, we can say that the integral becomes

R e [ e x p ( i p ( x x 0 ) ) e x p ( p p 0 ) d p ] Re\left[ \int _{ -\infty }^{ \infty }{ exp\left( \frac { i{ p }(x-{ x }_{ 0 }) }{ \hbar } \right) } exp\left( -\frac { \left| p \right| }{ { p }_{ 0 } } \right) dp \right]

Also the rest of the terms are even, thus leaving us with

2 R e [ 0 e x p ( i p ( x x 0 ) ) e x p ( p p 0 ) d p ] 2Re\left[ \int _{ 0 }^{ \infty }{ exp\left( \frac { i{ p }(x-{ x }_{ 0 }) }{ \hbar } \right) } exp\left( \frac { p }{ { p }_{ 0 } } \right) dp \right]

Next, is the integration, particular tricks are used here, just standard stuff

2 R e [ 1 ( i ( x x 0 ) ) + 1 p 0 ] 2Re\left[ \frac { 1 }{ \left( \frac { i(x-{ x }_{ 0 }) }{ \hbar } \right) } +\frac { 1 }{ { p }_{ 0 } } \right] \

Now that's disgusting, lets make it neater

2 R e [ p 0 i p 0 ( x x 0 ) + ] 2Re\left[ \frac { { p }_{ 0 }\hbar }{ i{ p }_{ 0 }(x-{ x }_{ 0 })+\hbar } \right]

We're pretty much done, just take the conjugate, are there you go.

gg no re well played

Trevor Arashiro - 6 years, 6 months ago

Isn't that The second option? Why is it wrong?

Victor Sales - 6 years, 5 months ago

Ah, notice how I've said that you must take the conjugate, as if we do so we can eliminate the imaginary terms. In the problem I said "SIMPLIFY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE" and the last conjugation is the hint to do that.

Kyouhei James - 6 years, 5 months ago

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