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Force derived from Yukawa potential

Physics Asked on December 8, 2020

This is with regards to problem 3.19 from Goldstein’s Classical Mechanics,

A particle moves in a force field described by the Yukowa potential $$ V(r) = -frac{k}{r} e^{-frac{r}{a}},
$$
where $k$ and $a$ are positive.

where I bolded the assumptions as this is the only information I can imagine helps me resolve this.

A solution due to Professor Laura Reina at Florida State Uni, as well as a solution due to Slader.com

both use the following expression for the force felt by a particle in the given Yukawa potential:

$$
F(r) = -frac{k}{r^2} e^{-frac{r}{a}}
$$

I am struggling to wrap my head around this. This is clearly not the result of

$$ -frac{partial V(r)}{partial r} $$

which evaluates to

$$
-frac{k}{r^2} e^{-frac{r}{a}} – frac{k}{ar} e^{-frac{r}{a}}
$$

Can anyone help me understand why the second term $-frac{k}{ar} e^{-frac{r}{a}}$ can be excluded here? I tried plotting some various example of this, varying k and a which are allowed to be any positive numbers, but I’ve no insight.

There was a question regarding this same topic which was not answered Deriving potential from central force

One Answer

I think the solutions you have posted are just incorrect. The exact expression should include the $-frac{k}{ar}e^{-ar}$ term. You could approximately ignore this term in the limit $rll a$, but in this limit one should also Taylor expand the exponential to be consistent.

In fact, looking at Prof. Reina's solutions, the third equation in the solution to 4.a does contain both terms you wrote down.

Correct answer by Andrew on December 8, 2020

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