A study of confined quantum systems using the Woods–Saxon potential

Abstract

We propose the Woods–Saxon (WS) potential to simulate spatial confinement. The great advantage of our methodology is that it enables the study of a wide range of systems and confinement regimes by varying two parameters in the model potential. To test the methodology we have studied the confined harmonic oscillator in two different regimes: when the confinement potential exhibits a sudden jump; and when the confinement is described by a smooth function. We have also applied the present procedure to a realistic problem, a confined quantum dot-atom. The numerical calculation is performed with the equally spaced discrete variable representation (DVR). Our results are in close agreement with those available in the literature, and we believe our method to be a good alternative for studying confined quantum systems.