The variational method applied to the harmonic oscillator in presence of a delta function potential

Abstract

The problem of the harmonic oscillator with a centrally located delta function potential can be exactly solved in one dimension where the eigenfunctions are expressed as superpositions of the Hermite polynomials or as confluent hypergeometric functions in general. The eigenfunctions obtained exactly are difficult to visualise and hence to gain more insight, one can attempt using model wave functions which are explicitly and simply expressed. Here we apply the variational method to verify how close one can approach the exact ground state eigenvalues using such trial wave functions. We obtain the estimates of the ground state energies which are closer to the exact values in comparison to earlier approximate results for both the repulsive and attractive delta potentials.