Effective Potential - Important Properties

Important Properties

There are many useful features of the effective potential. The condition for a particle of energy E flying by to be `trapped' and go into an orbit:

To find the radius of a circular orbit, we simply minimize the effective potential with respect to, or equivalently set the net force to zero and then solve for :

After solving for, plug this back into to find the maximum value of the effective potential

To find the frequency of small oscillations:

where the double prime indicates the second derivative of the effective potential with respect to .

Read more about this topic:  Effective Potential

Famous quotes containing the words important and/or properties:

    The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.
    Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)

    A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)