Square well/barrier resonances in the potentiodynamic plane

Abstract

The complex wave number plane equips us with an elegant mathematical construct which can be used to display and classify the different types of states which arise from solution of the time-independent Schrödinger equation for a quantum mechanical potential. The complex wave number plane is also useful for tracking the trajectories of these solutions as the potential is perturbed in some way, often resulting in profound dynamical structure. In this work we propose an alternative coordinate system, which we call the potentiodynamic plane, which has the useful property that the trajectories stay bounded, and apply this to the square well/barrier potential to reveal some new insights.