# Tag Info

## New answers tagged hydrogen

7

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 ...

2

It's because there is another vector quantity $A_i$ conserved in addition to the angular momentum $L_i$. Furthermore, the commutation relations of $A_i$'s and $L_i$'s are those of $SO(4)$. See for instance this reference : http://hep.uchicago.edu/~rosner/p342/projs/weinberg.pdf

2

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 ...

1

depends on the energy of the electron. For low energies, a bound state will be formed due to electromagnetic interaction between the two. In the case of higher energy, the proton can be transformed into a neutron.

7

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 ...

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