# Can an electron steal speed or energy from the nucleus?

In classical mechanics, there is a famous effect called Sling-shot effect (the link will support a demonstration), by which the satellite orbiting the huge planet will steal some kinetic energy from the planet (combining the laws of conservation of energy and momentum ).

So my naive question is: Is there any corresponding effect can exist in the atom? I mean the electron plays the role of satellite and the nucleus plays the role of a planet, or electron can steal the speed of nucleus (I believe the conservation of energy and momentum will still work in an atom)?

• This might be worth a look. – BLAZE Jan 19 '17 at 8:34

• The last paragraph has strange claims. First, what do you mean by the interaction being averaged away to zero? If there were no interaction, we'd have very high degeneracy like that which we'd have if electrons didn't repel. Next, the wavefunctions being orthonormal only tells us relations between different states, not any information about each individual state. And if you mean to speak of wavefunctions of each electron, it's completely wrong: electrons do interact, and this interaction makes the wavefunction not separable into product of $\psi(\vec r_{1})\psi(\vec r_{2})$. – Ruslan Jan 19 '17 at 13:29