Week of 4/7/08
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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_emission Spontaneous emission. Why does an electron in an excited state decay at all?] The theory we've presented so far explicitly prohibits this since stationary states are, well, stationary. This is the realm of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Spontaneous emission in free space depends on vacuum fluctuations. | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_emission Spontaneous emission. Why does an electron in an excited state decay at all?] The theory we've presented so far explicitly prohibits this since stationary states are, well, stationary. This is the realm of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Spontaneous emission in free space depends on vacuum fluctuations. | ||
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+ | Thinking about laser line width. Remember: <math>\Delta t \Delta E \geq \hbar/2</math> |
Revision as of 16:03, 7 April 2008
Download Hydrogen wavefunctions plotted in 3D using Mathematica |
Spontaneous emission. Why does an electron in an excited state decay at all? The theory we've presented so far explicitly prohibits this since stationary states are, well, stationary. This is the realm of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Spontaneous emission in free space depends on vacuum fluctuations.
Thinking about laser line width. Remember: