Robin boundary conditions are generic in quantum mechanics

Abstract

Robin (or mixed) boundary conditions in quantum mechanics have received considerable attention in the last two decades, in particular, for applications to nanoscale systems. However, their utility has remained obscure to the larger physics community; in fact, one may find extant claims in the literature about the supposed naturalness of the specific Dirichlet (or vanishing) boundary condition. Here we demonstrate that not only are Dirichlet boundary conditions unnatural, but that Robin boundary conditions have utility in the long-wavelength approximation of short-ranged potentials. For illustration, we consider a non-relativistic particle in one dimension under the influence of the multi-step and Morse potential. We derive the scattering and bound states for these potentials and determine the parameters that describe those states in an effective system, namely one in which there is a free particle with a boundary. This method appears to be generically applicable and also generalizable to many other real systems.