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A potential well is the region surrounding a local minimum of potential energy. Energy captured in a potential well is unable to convert to another type of energy (kinetic energy in the case of a gravitational potential well) because it is captured in the local minimum of a potential well. Therefore, a body may not proceed to the global minimum of potential energy, as it would naturally tend to due to entropy. ==Overview== Energy may be released from a potential well if sufficient energy is added to the system such that the local maximum is surmounted. In quantum physics, potential energy may escape a potential well without added energy due to the probabilistic characteristics of quantum particles; in these cases a particle may be imagined to tunnel ''through'' the walls of a potential well. The graph of a 2D potential energy function is a potential energy surface that can be imagined as the Earth's surface in a landscape of hills and valleys. Then a potential well would be a valley surrounded on all sides with higher terrain, which thus could be filled with water (e.g., be a lake) without any water flowing away toward another, lower minimum (e.g. sea level). In the case of gravity, the region around a mass is a gravitational potential well, unless the density of the mass is so low that tidal forces from other masses are greater than the gravity of the body itself. A potential hill is the opposite of a potential well, and is the region surrounding a local maximum. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「potential well」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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