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Atoms can be excited by heat, electricity, or light. The hydrogen atom provides a simple example of this concept.. The ground state of the hydrogen atom has the atom's single electron in the lowest possible orbital (that is, the spherically symmetric "1s" wave function, which, so far, has been demonstrated to have the lowest possible quantum numbers).
A nuclear isomer is a metastable state of an atomic nucleus, in which one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) occupy excited state levels (higher energy levels). ). "Metastable" describes nuclei whose excited states have half-lives 100 to 1000 times longer than the half-lives of the excited nuclear states that decay with a "prompt" half life (ordinarily on the order of 10
Internal conversion is an atomic decay process where an excited nucleus interacts electromagnetically with one of the orbital electrons of an atom. This causes the electron to be emitted (ejected) from the atom. [1] [2] Thus, in internal conversion (often abbreviated IC), a high-energy electron is emitted from the excited atom, but not from the ...
Neutron activation is the process in which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials, and occurs when atomic nuclei capture free neutrons, becoming heavier and entering excited states. The excited nucleus decays immediately by emitting gamma rays, or particles such as beta particles, alpha particles, fission products, and neutrons ...
The rules for the ordering of the nucleus shells are similar to Hund's Rules of the atomic shells, however, unlike its use in atomic physics, the completion of a shell is not signified by reaching the next n, as such the shell model cannot accurately predict the order of excited nuclei states, though it is very successful in predicting the ...
The excited quasi-bound nucleus is called a compound nucleus. Low energy (e, e' xn), (γ, xn) (the xn indicating one or more neutrons), where the gamma or virtual gamma energy is near the giant dipole resonance .
In inelastic scattering, the neutron interacts with the nucleus and the kinetic energy of the system is changed. This often activates the nucleus, putting it into an excited, unstable, short-lived energy state which causes it to quickly emit some kind of radiation to bring it back down to a stable or ground state.
When the nucleus has an even number of protons and neutrons, each one of them finds a partner. To excite such a system, one must at least use such an energy as to break a pair. Conversely, in the case of odd number of protons or neutrons, there exists an unpaired nucleon, which needs less energy to be excited.