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In physics and chemistry, the Lyman series is a hydrogen spectral series of transitions and resulting ultraviolet emission lines of the hydrogen atom as an electron goes from n ≥ 2 to n = 1 (where n is the principal quantum number), the lowest energy level of the electron (groundstate). The transitions are named sequentially by Greek letters ...
Lyman-alpha, typically denoted by Ly-α, is a spectral line of hydrogen (or, more generally, of any one-electron atom) in the Lyman series. It is emitted when the atomic electron transitions from an n = 2 orbital to the ground state ( n = 1), where n is the principal quantum number .
The Bohr model was later replaced by quantum mechanics in which the electron occupies an atomic orbital rather than an orbit, but the allowed energy levels of the hydrogen atom remained the same as in the earlier theory. Spectral emission occurs when an electron transitions, or jumps, from a higher energy state to a lower energy state.
The Lyman-alpha forest was first discovered in 1970 by astronomer Roger Lynds in an observation of the quasar 4C 05.34. [1] Quasar 4C 05.34 was the farthest object observed to that date, and Lynds noted an unusually large number of absorption lines in its spectrum and suggested that most of the absorption lines were all due to the same Lyman-alpha transition. [2]
The hydrogen line is produced when an electron in a neutral hydrogen atom is excited to the triplet spin state, or de-excited as the electron and proton spins go to the singlet state. The energy difference between these two hyperfine states is 5.9 × 10 − 6 {\displaystyle 5.9\times 10^{-6}} electron volts , with a wavelength of 21 centimeters.
The electron can only exist in certain, discretely separated orbits, labeled by their angular momentum, which is restricted to be an integer multiple of the reduced Planck constant. The model's key success lay in explaining the Rydberg formula for the spectral emission lines of atomic hydrogen by using the transitions of electrons between orbits.
In the end, the model was replaced by the modern quantum-mechanical treatment of the hydrogen atom, which was first given by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925, using Heisenberg's matrix mechanics. The current picture of the hydrogen atom is based on the atomic orbitals of wave mechanics, which Erwin Schrödinger developed in 1926.
In the case of neutral atomic hydrogen, the minimum ionization energy is equal to the Lyman limit, where the photon has enough energy to completely ionize the atom, resulting in a free proton and a free electron. Above this energy (below this wavelength), all wavelengths of light may be absorbed. This forms a continuum in the energy spectrum ...