# Tag Info

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One cannot tell by the light spectra. Hydrogen and antihydrogen would give the same lines in the spectrum. The prevalence of matter over antimatter from other evidence indicates matter is predominant in the observable universe, and here is a nice review. How do we really know that the universe is not matter-antimatter symmetric? The Moon: Neil ...

19

Heavy water is easy to separate from regular water because the difference in mass is quite large. The molar mass of heavy water is 11% heavier that regular water. However if we take uranium separation, then the percentage weight difference between $^{235}$UF$_6$ and $^{238}$UF$_6$ is only 0.9%, so the relative difference is far smaller. So it's a lot ...

19

There is a rigorous formal analysis which lets you do this. The true problem, of course allows both the proton and the electron to move. The corresponding Schrödinger equation thus has the coordinates of both as variables. To simplify things, one usually transforms those variables to the relative separation and the centre-of-mass position. It turns out that ...

13

I assume you're talking of the hydrogen atom; the hamiltonian of the nucleus + electron system is $$H = \frac{p_e^2}{2 m _e} + \frac{p_n^2}{2 m _n} - \frac{e^2}{|r_e - r_n|}.$$ You can do a change of coordinates (center of mass coordinates) $$\vec{R} = \frac{m_e \vec{r}_e + m_n \vec{r}_n}{m_e+m_n} \\ \vec{r} = r_e -r_n$$ and find the conjugate momenta to ...

12

Bohr postulated that electrons orbit the nucleus in discrete energy levels, and electrons can gain and lose energy by jumping between energy levels, giving off radiation of frequency $\nu$ according to the formula $\Delta E = E_2 - E_1 = h\nu$ where $\nu = \frac{1}{T}$, where T is the period of orbit, as in classical mechanics. Now during the transition, ...

11

As dmckee says in his comment - Population III stars have no metals (a tiny bit of lithium and beryllium), but they are not "pure hydrogen stars", they still have the big bang fraction of Helium. Taking the second part of your question first. These "stars" will last for ever. Their final fate is to become a completely degenerate ball of helium, supported by ...

10

In a neutral hydrogen atom the ground state has the electron and proton spins anti-parallel i.e. lined up with each other but pointing in opposite directions. The state with the spins parallel and pointing in the same direction has a slightly higher energy, and transitions between these two states produce the notorious 21cm hydrogen line. Since the ...

9

The probability density of the ground state is time independent, so there is no motion in this sense. Yet the expectation value of the kinetic energy is non-zero, so there is movement in this sense. How are these notions of movement reconciled? First off, classically, if we had a particle in a $1/r$ potential and released it from rest, it would indeed bob ...

9

The Hamiltonian for the hydrogen atom $$H = \frac{\mathbf{p}^2}{2m} - \frac{k}{r}$$ describes an electron in a central $1/r$ potential. This has the same form as the Kepler problem, and the symmetries are similar. There is an obvious $SO(3)$ generated by the angular momentum $\mathbf{L} = \mathbf{r} \times \mathbf{p}$. In other words, the components of ...

9

The problem with attempting to fuse two protons is that there is no bound state $^2$He, for the rather obvious reason that there are no neutrons present to hold the two protons together. The fusion of two protons requires one of them to undergo beta plus decay while the two protons are close, and the probability of this is vanishingly small. It happens in ...

8

The degeneracy of energy-levels can be traced to the fact that the hydrogen atom possesses an enhanced $SO(4)$ symmetry caused by (among other things) the conservation of the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector operator, see e.g. this Phys.SE post and Ref. 1. References: G. 't Hooft, Introduction to Lie Groups in Physics, lecture notes, chapter 9. The pdf file is ...

8

The infinitesimal probability for the electron to be in the volume $dV$ around a point $(r,\theta,\phi)\leftrightarrow (x,y,z)$ is given by $$dP = dV\cdot |\psi(x,y,z)|^2 = dV\cdot |R(r)|^2\cdot |Y_{lm}(\theta,\phi)|^2 =\dots$$ as you can see if you substitute your Ansatz for the wave function. However, the infinitesimal volume $dV=dx\cdot dy\cdot dz$ may ...

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By "consume" we mean "convert into helium." That $6\times10^{11}\ \mathrm{kg}$ of hydrogen is part of the Sun (specifically it is found in the core of the Sun), and it is converted into $6\times10^{11}\ \mathrm{kg}$ of helium. The Sun doesn't need to suck up material from space. Note that this amount of material is miniscule compared to the $2\times10^{30}\ ... 7 The orbitals, which recently have been observed for the hydrogen atom, are probability distributions. These probability orbital distributions have been calculated using quantum mechanical solutions of the Schrodinger equation which give the wave function, and the square of the wave function is the probability distribution for finding the electron at that ... 7 This calculation agrees with experimentally measured spectral lines, but why would we expect it to be true, even if we accept that the electron moves according to the Schrodinger equation? After all, there's no particular reason for an electron to be in an eigenstate. Good question! The function$\psi$does not need to be Hamiltonian eigenfunction. ... 6 I'm not sure what you mean by "collapse", but if I interpret that as "no hydrogen is formed" or "the electron is not captured", then 2 things can happen: 1) Elastic electron-proton scattering: the electron and proton just "bounce" off each other under some angle theta. By observing the cross section of the scattering versus the theta angle it was shown that ... 6 (I tried to post this response with chart and links, but I'm new here, so the system won't let me include images or more than two links. Please cut and paste the other links to view them in your browser.) This diagram from the NH3 Fuel Association (taken from www.nh3fuelassociation.org/about-us--why-nh3) (scroll down the page) may answer part of your ... 6 The physical observable is not the wavefunction, but its integral over a finite area. In spherical coordinates, this is:$P({\vec x})=\int dr\, d\theta\, d\phi r^{2}\sin\theta \psi^{*}\psi$This integrand is manifestly finite at$r=0$, even if$R(r)$has a$\frac{1}{r}$divergance. 6 With a potential$V(x) = - \frac{\alpha}{|x|}$, with the notation$a = \large \frac{\hbar^2}{m \alpha}$, solutions are : $$u^+_n(x,t) \sim x e^{ - \large \frac{x}{na}} ~L_{n -1}^1(\frac{2x }{na}) e^{ -\frac{1}{\hbar} \large E_nt}~~for~~ x>0$$ $$u^+_n(x,t) = 0~for~~ x\le0$$ and : $$u^-_n(x,t) \sim x e^{ + \large \frac{x}{na}} ~L_{n -1}^1(\frac{2x ... 6 The scattering states must be included in the perturbative calculations if the result is to be highly accurate. In particular, it is not justified to ignore the continuous spectrum at energies close to the dissociation threshold. The Hilbert space in the position representation is the space of square integrable functions on R^3\setminus\{0\} with respect ... 6 There is no integration of the radial part because, as you said yourself, we want the probability of finding the electron somewhere in the spherical shell between r and r+dr from the nucleus. (in a differential shell between r and r+dr, and no need to integrate over r.) 5 The ordinary Bessel functions are perfectly well defined for complex arguments. For example, here is a plot of \Re[J_2(x + i y)]: The difference between the ordinary and modified Bessel functions is that they satisfy different equations:$$ z^2 y'' + z y' + (z^2 - n^2) y = 0, $$for the ordinary Bessel functions and$$ z^2 y'' + z y' - (z^2 + n^2) y ... 5 Making ammonia is an absolute bugger because nitrogen is so unreactive. The normal route is the Haber process, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch, but this requires high pressures and temperatures. Hydrogen is easy to produce from electricity, and I guess that's why it's the first choice for storage of energy generated by unreliable sources like wind ... 5 For a hydrogen-like atom in 3 spatial dimensions, the rewriting of the radial part $$R(r)~=~\frac{u(r)}{r}$$ is not performed to keep the$u(r)$part regular, as OP suggests, but usually because the 3D radial equation in terms of the$u$function has the same form as a 1D Schrödinger equation. Imagine that the radial wave function goes as a power ... 5 Air is lighter because there are fewer molecules per unit volume compared with a unit volume of liquid water. A mole of water is 18 grams, so a liter of water contains about 55 moles (1000 grams). A mole of air at standard temperature and pressure, however, occupies a volume of 22.4 liters, much more. Dividing a mole of 02 (32 grams) by 22.4, you have ... 5 The graph shows the probability of finding the electron between the distances$r$and$r + dr$. This probability is given by: $$P = \psi^* \psi dV$$ where$dV$is the volume element: $$dV = 4\pi r^2 dr$$ So we get the probability: $$P(r,r+dr) = \psi^* \psi 4\pi r^2 dr$$ and therefore when$r = 0$the probability$P = 0$. It isn't that the ... 5 The answer is that the premise is wrong. There can't be a hydrogen wave function with the coefficients you have written. Even if there was no$| 1 0 0 \rangle\$ state present, the state isn't normalized. That means that it isn't physical. However, remember that the coefficients are somewhat arbitrary, that is, we're allowed to multiply the whole wavefunction ...

5

Is the Coulomb potential also used to solve the hydrogen atom in relativistic quantum mechanics? Yes, the Coulomb potential is there in the solution of the hydrogen atom with the Dirac equation, which is formulated in the relativistic framework. Now it is time to specialize to the hydrogen atom for which $$\frac{V}{\hbar c}=-\frac{Z\alpha}{r}$$ ...

5

You say: The Coulomb potential comes from classical electrodynamics but actually the Coulomb potential is predicted by quantum electrodynamics as a low energy limit. Quantum field theory describes the interactions between charged particles as the exchange of virtual particles, and it's not immediately obvious that it would lead to an inverse square ...

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