to go to a lower level what must an electron lose
How can an electron spring between atomic levels without passing through all the space in between?
Category: Physics Published: June 18, 2014
Shown hither are important electron transitions in the hydrogen atom. When an electron transitions betwixt atomic states, it does not instantaneously leap. Public Domain Image, source: Christopher S. Baird.
An electron that is transitioning between two atomic states does non skip any intervening space. The idea of a breakthrough leap is highly misleading and usually misunderstood. First of all, an electron is a quantum object. Equally such, it acts both as a wave and every bit a particle at the same time. When bound as part of an cantlet, an electron mostly acts like a wave. An atomic electron spreads out into deject-like wave shapes called "orbitals". If you lot look closely at the various orbitals of an atom (for instance, the hydrogen cantlet), yous run across that they all overlap in space. Therefore, when an electron transitions from i diminutive free energy level to another energy level, it does not really go anywhere. It just changes shape. The orbital shapes with more fluctuations (with more highs, lows, and bends to its shape) contain more energy. In other words, when an electron transitions to a lower atomic energy level, its wave shape changes to accept less kinks in it. Just the electron does not "jump" anywhere.
The moving ridge beliefs of an electron in an atom is very like to the behavior of classical waves on a guitar string. When you lot pluck a guitar string, you excite standing waves in the cord, which are what brand the sound. A certain string tin merely experience certain types of standing waves considering the string is clamped down on both ends. The types of waves allowed on a particular string are called its "harmonics". The harmonics of a string depend on the string'due south length, tension, and mass density. A detail guitar string (of a detail length, tension, and mass) tin can therefore only play a certain type of audio, which is a combination of its harmonics.
If you are very careful well-nigh how you pluck the cord, you can create a wave on the string which is mostly the lower, fundamental harmonic (which has very few kinks), or you lot can create a moving ridge on the string which is by and large a higher harmonic (which has many kinks). It takes more than free energy and is therefore harder to strongly excite the higher harmonic in a guitar cord. Furthermore, if you pluck the string properly so as to strongly excite a higher harmonic wave in the string, yous tin even coax the string to transition downward to the lower-energy harmonic. The wave on the guitar string does not get anywhere when the string transitions from a college-free energy land to a lower-energy country. The wave merely changes shape. In a like mode, the detached set of electron orbitals possible in a certain atom are effectively the harmonics of the cantlet. The electron can transition to a college harmonic wave shape by absorbing energy and kinking more than, or transition to a lower harmonic moving ridge shape by emitting free energy and kinking less (relaxing).
Information technology should be clear at this betoken that an electron that transitions in an atom does not brand whatsoever kind of leap from i location in space to another location in space. Simply yous may still exist worried that the electron makes a leap from one energy level to some other, and therefore bypasses all the in-between free energy states. Although we are talking about a leap on the energy scale, and not a leap in infinite, such a leap may still strike you lot as unnatural, as information technology should. The fact is that an electron transitioning in an atom does non actually discontinuously leap from one energy level to some other energy level, only makes a smooth transition. Yous may wonder, "Doesn't quantum theory tell us that an electron in an atom can only be at sure, discrete energy levels?" Actually, no. Quantum theory tells us that an electron with a stationary energy tin can only be at certain, discrete energy levels. This distinction is very important. By "stationary free energy" we hateful that the electron'southward energy stays constant for a adequately long menstruation of time. The orbitals of a particular atom are not the just allowed states that an electron can take on in the atom. They are the only stable states of the atom, meaning that when an electron settles down to a particular state in an atom, it must be in one of the orbital states.
When an electron is in the process of transitioning between stable states, it is not itself stable and therefore has less restrictions on its energy. In fact, an electron that transitions does not fifty-fifty have a well-divers free energy. Innate quantum uncertainty arises in the electron's energy considering of its transition. The quicker an electron transitions, the more uncertain its energy. This "innate quantum uncertainty" is not some metaphysical mystery, but is improve understood equally the wave spreading out over many values. Only as the electron tin spread out into a wave that extends over a region of infinite, it can likewise spread out into a wave that extends over a region along the energy scale. If you calculate the average energy (the "expectation value") of this transitioning electron's spread of energies, you find that the electron's boilerplate energy does not instantaneously spring from 1 energy level to another. Rather, information technology smoothly transitions on average from the one free energy level to the other energy level over a period of time. There is really no "instantaneous quantum spring" at all. The electron does not leap in space, and information technology does not jump upwards the energy scale. In fact, the term "breakthrough spring" is nearly universally shunned by scientists as it is highly misleading. If you desire a better mental image, yous can think of the electron as apace, but smoothly sliding along the free energy calibration from one stable state to the next. Considering a typical atomic electron transition is so fast (often on the order of nanoseconds), it tin can seem to be almost instantaneous to the slow human being senses, but fundamentally information technology is non.
Source: https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2014/06/18/how-can-an-electron-leap-between-atomic-levels-without-passing-through-all-the-space-in-between/
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