Do Polarized Atoms Imply Shifted Electron Orbitals?

[Getterdog]

When neutral atoms become polarized from ambient EM radiation, does this automatically imply that electrons have shifted orbitals,or do they remain in the same levels but become deformed? Thanks

 

[dRic2]

If you want to know how orbitals behave when an extern Electric or Magnetic field is present, then search for Stark and Zeeman effect. There are a lot of youtube videos

 

[DrClaude]

When neutral atoms become polarized from ambient EM radiation, does this automatically imply that electrons have shifted orbitals,or do they remain in the same levels but become deformed? Thanks

It depends on which orbitals/levels you are talking about. If you are talking about the field-free states, than an external field leads to a superposition of these states. In other words, the polarised orbitals are linear combinations of the field-free orbitals.

At the same time, one can take the polarised orbitals as eigenstates of the Hamiltonian that includes the external field.

Usually, the first case is considered as external fields are usually weak and a perturbative approach is used.