Which atoms are orbited by shared electron?

Question

A covalent bond, also called a molecular bond, is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs, and the stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms, when they share electrons, is known as covalent bonding.

I don't have deep understanding of physics (yet) and i'm not the mr. know-it-all when it comes to physics, but i'm curious on how does covalent bond works , if electron orbits nucleus , and electron pairs is shared between 2 atom , which nucleus are orbited by the shared electron?

Answer 1

From a quantum mechanical point of view, an electron is described by means of a wavefunction $\psi(\textbf{x})$ rather than by an orbital motion around some atom nucleus. The absolute square of the wavefunction $\mid{\psi(\textbf{x})}\mid^{2}$ provides a probability distribution for where the given electron may be found to be when performing a position measurement. The way you reconcile this concepts with your knowledge from school physics is to associate to each of the orbitals along which one was told electrons go along to such a wavefunction, which results in a probability distribution “peaked” in space around the corresponding orbital trajectory.

The wavefunction of an electron involved in a covalent bond provides a probability distribution $\mid{\psi(\textbf{x})}\mid^{2}$ that is smeared out betweeen the two atoms “sharing” the electron.