Timeline for What happens to an electron if given quantized energy to jump to a full orbital?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
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| Jul 7, 2021 at 4:14 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | Ok. I think it would be even clearer to say "the electron can't accept / be given that amount of energy", to point out that (to this first approximation) the premise is impossible, not just lacking in effect. That's one of those things that I'm sure is obvious to people that regularly work with quantum mechanics, but not to some interested amateurs. | |
| Jul 7, 2021 at 4:13 | comment | added | SuperCiocia | I meant the photon just goes by and is not absorbed. The electron cannot absorb a photon and remain in the same shell & sub-shell. | |
| Jul 7, 2021 at 4:12 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | Do you mean "nothing happens" as in "no energy is even absorbed in the first place from whatever source", or "the electron now has more energy but stays in its original orbital because it can't reach a higher one that's not full". @ChrisLong's answer says "more likely that the photon will not be absorbed", assuming that the unspecified energy source is a photon. | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 23:23 | comment | added | SuperCiocia | yes you are right and your answer is the actual correct answer to the question. Mine is approximate and simplistic. | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 21:36 | comment | added | Chris Long | My point was that the questioner was asking what would happen if the photon was absorbed by the $1s$ electron (which is physically possible due to the $\operatorname{sinc}$ function) just the probability of doing so is extremely small - my order of magnitude estimate is approximately $10^{-12}\%\text{ per }\left(\text{photon }m^{-3}\right)$. | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 18:31 | comment | added | SuperCiocia | That will probably fine tune the matrix element side of the formula. The density of states bit is not an approximation | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 17:26 | comment | added | Chris Long | I believe Fermi's Golden rule applies in the limit that the perturbing potential is applied for a long time and so is just an approximation of: $\Gamma_{i\to f}=\frac{\text{d}}{\text{d}t}\int\text{d}\omega'\rho\left(\omega'\right)\left(\frac{\left|\langle\phi\left(\omega'\right)|H'|i\rangle\right|}{\hbar}\right)^2t^2\operatorname{sinc}\left(\frac{1}{2}t\left(\omega'-\omega_i-\omega\right)\right)$ where $H'$ is the perturbing potential that oscillates at frequency $\omega$ and $E_i=\hbar\omega_i$ Thus, should the probability of tranisiton not be small but finite? | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 16:21 | history | answered | SuperCiocia | CC BY-SA 4.0 |