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In The Dirac-delta function as an initial state for the quantum free particle, Emilio Pisanty

states that if an object's position wave function, $\Psi(x,0)$, is a delta function (at $t = 0$), then $$ \Psi(x,t)=\begin{cases}\delta(x) & t=0\\ \sqrt{\frac{m}{2\pi\hbar |t|}}e^{-i\mathrm{sgn}(t)\pi/4}\exp\left[i\frac{mx^2}{2\hbar t}\right]&t\neq 0\end{cases} $$ In that case, at $t>0$, the momentum wave function is$$ \Phi\left(k,\, t\right) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{{2\pi}}}\sqrt{\frac{m}{2\pi\hbar t}}e^{-i\mathrm{sgn}(t)\pi/4}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\exp\left[i\frac{mx^2}{2\hbar t}\right]e^{ikx}\mathrm{d}x $$

According to Engineering Tables/Fourier Transform Table 2, and if we set $\mathcal{x'}=-x$,$$ \begin{alignat}{7} \Phi\left(k, \, t\right) & ~=~ -\sqrt{\frac{m}{2\pi\hbar t}} \, e^{-i\mathrm{sgn}(t)\pi/4} \, \sqrt{\frac{\hbar t}{m}} \, \exp\left[{-i\left(\frac{\hbar t k^2}{2m} - \frac{\pi}{4}\right)}\right] \\ & ~=~-\frac{1}{\sqrt{{2\pi}}} \, e^{-i\mathrm{sgn}(t)\pi/4} \, \exp\left[{-i\left(\frac{\hbar t k^2}{2m} - \frac{\pi}{4}\right)}\right] \\ & ~=~-\frac{1}{\sqrt{{2\pi}}} \, \exp\left[{-i\frac{\hbar t k^2}{2m} }\right] \\ & ~=~ -\frac{1}{\sqrt{{2\pi}}} \, \exp\left[{-i\omega t }\right]\end{alignat}$$

This seems to indicate that, for $t>0$, both $\Psi^2$ and $\Phi^2$ are constant in space, though $\Psi^2$ diminishes in time. That means that both position and momentum are totally uncertain in space for $t>0$.

Did I get that right?

I know that a position eigenstate is not a solution of Schrodinger's equation and so this is all somewhat outside the scope of orthodox QM, but this does seem to violate the idea that the less certain is one variable, the more certain is it's conjugate variable.

David
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1 Answers1

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What you have is a free particle propagator (also called Green's function of the free particle Hamiltonian). This is an auxiliary mathematical concept to express time evolution of a general normalizable $\psi$ function. But propagator itself is not a normalized $\psi$ function, the usual theorems valid for normalized $\psi$ functions do not apply to it.

The Heisenberg uncertainty relations are derived from the commutation relations for normalizable $\psi$ functions only. One cannot apply them to singular objects such delta distribution. Not even expected average value of position

$$ \langle x \rangle = \int\psi^* x\psi dx $$

has a sense for $\psi=\delta(x-x_0)$ (or its time evolved version).