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The Schrödinger equation for the electron in a hydrogen atom (or a hydrogen-like atom) is = where is the electron charge, is the position of the electron relative to the nucleus, = | | is the magnitude of the relative position, the potential term is due to the Coulomb interaction, wherein is the permittivity of free space and = + is the 2-body ...
Given that the hydrogen atom contains a nucleus and an electron, quantum mechanics allows one to predict the probability of finding the electron at any given radial distance . It is given by the square of a mathematical function known as the "wavefunction", which is a solution of the Schrödinger equation. The lowest energy equilibrium state of ...
This equation is obtained from combining the Rydberg formula for any hydrogen-like element (shown below) with E = hν = hc / λ assuming that the principal quantum number n above = n 1 in the Rydberg formula and n 2 = ∞ (principal quantum number of the energy level the electron descends from, when emitting a photon).
The energy levels in the hydrogen atom depend only on the principal quantum number n. For a given n , all the states corresponding to ℓ = 0 , … , n − 1 {\displaystyle \ell =0,\ldots ,n-1} have the same energy and are degenerate.
The Schrödinger equation describes the space- and time-dependence of the slow changing (non-relativistic) wave function of a quantum system. The solution of the Schrödinger equation for a bound system is discrete (a set of permitted states, each characterized by an energy level) which results in the concept of quanta.
Second, these discrete energy levels are equally spaced, unlike in the Bohr model of the atom, or the particle in a box. Third, the lowest achievable energy (the energy of the n = 0 state, called the ground state ) is not equal to the minimum of the potential well, but ħω /2 above it; this is called zero-point energy .
For example, according to simple (nonrelativistic) quantum mechanics, the hydrogen atom has many stationary states: 1s, 2s, 2p, and so on, are all stationary states. But in reality, only the ground state 1s is truly "stationary": An electron in a higher energy level will spontaneously emit one or more photons to decay into the ground state. [3]
This was a significant step in the development of quantum mechanics. It also described the possibility of atomic energy levels being split by a magnetic field (called the Zeeman effect). Walther Kossel worked with Bohr and Sommerfeld on the Bohr–Sommerfeld model of the atom introducing two electrons in the first shell and eight in the second. [8]