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The negative-energy particle then crosses the event horizon into the black hole, with the law of conservation of energy requiring that an equal amount of positive energy should escape. In the Penrose process , a body divides in two, with one half gaining negative energy and falling in, while the other half gains an equal amount of positive ...
If the potential energy is set to zero at infinite distance from the atomic nucleus or molecule, the usual convention, then bound electron states have negative potential energy. If an atom, ion, or molecule is at the lowest possible energy level, it and its electrons are said to be in the ground state.
One consequence is that, given a potential vanishing at infinity, negative-energy states must be bound. The energy spectrum of the set of bound states are most commonly discrete, unlike scattering states of free particles , which have a continuous spectrum.
Energy levels for an electron in an atom: ground state and excited states. After absorbing energy, an electron may jump from the ground state to a higher-energy excited state. The ground state of a quantum-mechanical system is its stationary state of lowest energy; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system.
Some physicists, such as Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking or Alexander Vilenkin, call or called this state "a universe from nothingness", although the zero-energy universe model requires both a matter field with positive energy and a gravitational field with negative energy to exist. [2] The hypothesis is broadly discussed in popular sources.
In 1973, Edward Tryon proposed the zero-energy universe hypothesis: that the Universe may be a large-scale quantum-mechanical vacuum fluctuation where positive mass–energy is balanced by negative gravitational potential energy. [10]
A positive value of U is due to a repulsive force, so interacting particles are at higher energy levels as they get closer. A negative potential energy indicates a bound state (due to an attractive force). The Coulomb barrier increases with the atomic numbers (i.e. the number of protons) of the colliding nuclei:
There are various types of potential energy, each associated with a particular type of force. For example, the work of an elastic force is called elastic potential energy; work of the gravitational force is called gravitational potential energy; work of the Coulomb force is called electric potential energy; work of the strong nuclear force or weak nuclear force acting on the baryon charge is ...