Timeline for Wave function of atoms and ground state
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 12 at 17:47 | comment | added | Roger V. | So my question is: Why do we always find the Hydrogen atom (after waiting some reasonable amount of time) in its ground state (if we don't apply any field) when the quantum theory allows us to have a superposition of states? - the answer is because we are dealing with more than one atom (or atom and em field). And this knowledge is sufficient for most purposes, without including interactions in the Hamiltonian and solving for lifetimes. | |
| Nov 12 at 17:39 | comment | added | JQK | @RogerV. The original post was silent on any aspect associated with more than 1 atom, as well as any interactions. Which is consistent with the use of Schroedinger equation. | |
| Nov 12 at 13:55 | comment | added | Roger V. | As pointed in response to your comment elsewhere: in statistical physics the interactions leading to the establishment of thermodynamic equilibrium are called residual interactions - they exist, but not included in the description of the equilibrium state. Think of an ideal gas and its Boltzmann distribution. Lifetimes indeed depend on the interaction term, but they are irrelevant to thermodynamic equilibrium. | |
| Nov 11 at 20:33 | history | answered | JQK | CC BY-SA 4.0 |