Electron speeds in orbitals

In summary, the concept of electrons in higher energy orbitals moving faster than those in lower energy orbitals is not accurate as electrons do not "move" in the classical sense. The concept of "speed" does not apply to electrons in atoms, as they are more accurately described by a wave function that is "smeared out" around the nucleus and the orbitals indicate the most likely positions to find an electron. The quantum mechanical definition of momentum does not require movement and is instead defined in terms of an operator on the wave function. The Schrödinger Equation works because the speed of electrons in atoms is much slower than the speed of light. The concept of movement is not well defined on the quantum scale and the wave function
  • #1
Quantom
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Do electrons in higher energy orbitals move faster than ones in lower energy orbitals?
 
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  • #2
No, because electrons do note "move" around the nucleus.
The idea of the atom being composed of electrons "orbiting" the nucleus just happened to be one of the first models of the atom; it is not correct meaning the concept of "speed" does not apply in this case.

If you want you can think of the the electron wavefunction being "smeared out" around the nucleus, the orbitals are then the positions where you are most likely to find an electron.
 
  • #3
f95toli said:
No, because electrons do note "move" around the nucleus.
The idea of the atom being composed of electrons "orbiting" the nucleus just happened to be one of the first models of the atom; it is not correct meaning the concept of "speed" does not apply in this case.

If you want you can think of the the electron wavefunction being "smeared out" around the nucleus, the orbitals are then the positions where you are most likely to find an electron.

How can electrons have momentum if they do not move in atoms?
 
  • #4
feynmann said:
How can electrons have momentum if they do not move in atoms?
The quantum mechanical definition of momentum does not require "movement" since as f95toli said, the concept of "moment" is not well defined for particles on the quantum scale. Instead, the momentum of a particle is defined in terms of an operator on the wave function of the particle.
 
  • #5
Hootenanny said:
The quantum mechanical definition of momentum does not require "movement" since as f95toli said, the concept of "moment" is not well defined for particles on the quantum scale. Instead, the momentum of a particle is defined in terms of an operator on the wave function of the particle.

If the momentum operator operate on wavefunction, you will get the eigenvalue of momentum operator, which is the value of momentum itself.
The reason the Schrödinger Equation works is that the speed of electron in hydrogen atom is much slower than the speed of the light. So the electron definitely moves in the atom, Otherwise, we would not need the Dirac's equation for relativistic quantum mechanics
 
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  • #6
well doesn't the wave function propagate or oscillate at a certain rate or am i wrong about that? And if electrons don't actually move in the atom, they cannot be relativistic?
 
  • #7
feynmann said:
If the momentum operator operate on wavefunction, you will get the eigenvalue of momentum operator
Yes.
feynmann said:
which is the value of momentum itself.
No. The eigenvalues of an operator are not observables. The momentum of a system is given by the expectation value of the momentum operator, not it's eigenvalues. Assuming that the wave function, [itex]\psi[/itex] is normalised, the expectation value of any operator [itex]\hat{A}[/itex] is given by,

[tex]\langle\hat{A}\rangle = \langle\psi | \hat{A} | \psi\rangle[/tex]

So in effect, the expectation value of an observable is obtained by summing each eigenvalue multiplied by its corresponding probability.
feynmann said:
The reason the Schrödinger Equation works is that the speed of electron in hydrogen atom is much slower than the speed of the light. So the electron definitely moves in the atom, Otherwise, we would not need the Dirac's equation for relativistic quantum mechanics
As I sad above, "movement" is not well defined on the quantum scale. Classically, one could say a particle moves if at time x it is at position y and at time x' it is at y'. However, in quantum mechanics, one never knows precisely where the particle is. The best you can do is say that at time t, the particle has a certain probability of being at position x.

This is precisely the reason why you will very rarely hear a physicist saying that the electrons move slowly, instead they would say that the electron energies are non-relativistic.

Quantom said:
well doesn't the wave function propagate or oscillate at a certain rate or am i wrong about that? And if electrons don't actually move in the atom, they cannot be relativistic?
An important point to realize is that the wave function does not correspond to any physically meaningful/observable quantities. When we say a wave function, it doesn't mean that the particle follows the path defined by the wave function, or that the particle oscillates like the wave function.

The wave function is merely a mathematical tool for describing a system of particles.
 
  • #8
You can measure an electron speed in a bound state by
v_rms=\sqrt<p^2/m^2>. In hydrogen, this gives v~1/n.
 
  • #9
f95toli, you're wrong. Electrons don't 'move' in the classical sense. But saying they don't have a velocity because they don't move classically is misleading. The exact nature of their motion isn't relevant to the question. They have momentum and kinetic energy, and that that kinetic energy is different for different orbitals.

Which is unsurprising since kinetic energy is the largest contributor to the overall orbital energy.
Also, 'orbitals' are not orbits, or |psi|^2, orbitals are the wave function(s).

And yes, electrons can reach relativistic velocities. The electrons in highest energy (core) orbitals of heavy atoms have a significant relativistic momentum.
 
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  • #10
Hootenanny said:
Yes.
This is precisely the reason why you will very rarely hear a physicist saying that the electrons move slowly, instead they would say that the electron energies are non-relativistic.

The concept of movement DOES make sense in the quantum scale. Obviously, you've never heard of quantum mechanical current flow operators, and needless to say current = movement. (See Non-Equilibrium Green's Function methodology). NEGF, Quantum transport, etc...

You don't need to know the exact momentum and displacement of a particle to see whether it is moving or not. If the probability of finding an electron at a particular position changes with time then we conclude that the electron is moving. Because after sufficient time, the probability of finding the electron at that initial position will be zero from which we conclude that the electron is now elsewhere, i.e, it is moving.You might have never heard a physicist talk about a moving electron, but I assume it's because elementary QM texts (or courses) almost never deal with non-equilibrium problems.

I hear (from world-wide known physicists), and use, the concept of a moving electron in a quantum mechanical sense everyday.

I understand that it's difficult to visualize all the subtle aspects of QM, but saying 'movement does not make sense in quantum scale' is at the very least deeply flawed.
 
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  • #11
alxm said:
f95toli, you're wrong. Electrons don't 'move' in the classical sense. But saying they don't have a velocity because they don't move classically is misleading. The exact nature of their motion isn't relevant to the question. They have momentum and kinetic energy, and that that kinetic energy is different for different orbitals.

Indeed, but note that Quantom was asking if electrons in higher orbitals move faster than electrons in lower energy states, i.e. the way I understood the question he was thinking of the classical concept of speed; something along the way of a "planetary system".
 
  • #12
sokrates said:
You don't need to know the exact momentum and displacement of a particle to see whether it is moving or not. If the probability of finding an electron at a particular position changes with time then we conclude that the electron is moving. Because after sufficient time, the probability of finding the electron at that initial position will be zero from which we conclude that the electron is now elsewhere, i.e, it is moving.

No one is saying that "movement doesn't make sense"; what we are saying is that the classical concept of speed doesn't make sense for an electron in an atom.
This is obviously not true in the general case; an obvious example would be tunnelling experiments where electrons are "shuttled" between islands by an applied RF voltage. This is still a quantum mechanical system but is is designed in such a way that the electrons are localized to the island most of the time meaning you can calculate their average speed if you want (people are trying to use these systems to make current standards; the current is proportional to the frequency of the applied voltage).
Hence, whether or not one can talk about "speed" in the classical sense depends on the system.
 
  • #13
f95toli said:
No one is saying that "movement doesn't make sense"; what we are saying is that the classical concept of speed doesn't make sense for an electron in an atom.
I am quoting what Hootenanny said just a few posts before:
Hootenanny said:
As I sad above, "movement" is not well defined on the quantum scale. Classically, one could say a particle moves if at time x it is at position y and at time x' it is at y'. However, in quantum mechanics, one never knows precisely where the particle is. The best you can do is say that at time t, the particle has a certain probability of being at position x.

The velocity might make sense in an atom (or a molecule) that is connected to two reservoirs. (the hallmark of nanotechnology)
In fact, there are such systems and the velocities are defined as escape rates.

So even in an atom, you cannot explicitly "ban" the concepts of speed, and movement.
 
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  • #14
sokrates said:
The concept of movement DOES make sense in the quantum scale. Obviously, you've never heard of quantum mechanical current flow operators, and needless to say current = movement. (See Non-Equilibrium Green's Function methodology). NEGF, Quantum transport, etc...

You don't need to know the exact momentum and displacement of a particle to see whether it is moving or not. If the probability of finding an electron at a particular position changes with time then we conclude that the electron is moving. Because after sufficient time, the probability of finding the electron at that initial position will be zero from which we conclude that the electron is now elsewhere, i.e, it is moving.

You might have never heard a physicist talk about a moving electron, but I assume it's because elementary QM texts (or courses) almost never deal with non-equilibrium problems.

I hear (from world-wide known physicists), and use, the concept of a moving electron in a quantum mechanical sense everyday.

I understand that it's difficult to visualize all the subtle aspects of QM, but saying 'movement does not make sense in quantum scale' is at the very least deeply flawed.
I have indeed encountered current operators and am aware of quantum transport and similar phenomenon. Although I am indeed a student, I have not studied elementary quantum mechanics texts for some time.

I will concede that my statement regarding the movement was poorly formed. My meaning was that movement is not defined in the same sense quantum mechanically as it is classically. I thought that this was clear from the following sentence "Classically, one could say a particle moves if at time x it is at position y and at time x' it is at y'. However, in quantum mechanics, one never knows precisely where the particle is. The best you can do is say that at time t, the particle has a certain probability of being at position x". I was using the term "not well defined" in the same sense as the phrase often used in elementary texts: "the position of a particle is not well defined". Obviously, this statement doesn't mean that the concept of position doesn't exists.

I would also like to point out that I never said that "the concept of movement doesn't make sense".
 
  • #15
sokrates said:
In fact, there are such systems and the velocities are defined as escape rates.
.

This is slightly OT but escape rates has nothing as such to do the velocity. The escape rate of a system is the average rate (in units of events/s) at which it escapes from one local energy minimum to another, usually either via thermal excitation (over the energy barrier) via tunnelling ("through" the barrier). In the thermal case this rate is given by the famous Arrhenius formula which is simply the attempt rate multiplied by a Boltzmann factor (+a numerical pre-factor which is of the order 1).
Note that the escape is from one state , to another; it doesn't have to include "motion" of any kind.
(I spent about two years measuring the phase escape rate of Josephson junctions when I was a PhD student).
 
  • #16
Hootenanny said:
I have indeed encountered current operators and am aware of quantum transport and similar phenomenon. Although I am indeed a student, I have not studied elementary quantum mechanics texts for some time.

I will concede that my statement regarding the movement was poorly formed. My meaning was that movement is not defined in the same sense quantum mechanically as it is classically. I thought that this was clear from the following sentence "Classically, one could say a particle moves if at time x it is at position y and at time x' it is at y'. However, in quantum mechanics, one never knows precisely where the particle is. The best you can do is say that at time t, the particle has a certain probability of being at position x". I was using the term "not well defined" in the same sense as the phrase often used in elementary texts: "the position of a particle is not well defined". Obviously, this statement doesn't mean that the concept of position doesn't exists.

I would also like to point out that I never said that "the concept of movement doesn't make sense".

Ok, I see the point. I think I was more concentrated on the 'definition of movement'.
And indeed, in an isolated hydrogen atom it's difficult to talk about a movement of this kind because even the statistical probabilities are not changing... Ok, electron has a momentum but you cannot infer a velocity because momentum is exactly given.

I take back my hasty remarks and apologize. But you weren't crystal clear either : )
 
  • #17
f95toli said:
This is slightly OT but escape rates has nothing as such to do the velocity. The escape rate of a system is the average rate (in units of events/s) at which it escapes from one local energy minimum to another, usually either via thermal excitation (over the energy barrier) via tunnelling ("through" the barrier). In the thermal case this rate is given by the famous Arrhenius formula which is simply the attempt rate multiplied by a Boltzmann factor (+a numerical pre-factor which is of the order 1).
Note that the escape is from one state , to another; it doesn't have to include "motion" of any kind.
(I spent about two years measuring the phase escape rate of Josephson junctions when I was a PhD student).

Hmm. Good point. I always imagined the escape rates as velocities. My reasoning is twofold:
1) Unit-wise it makes sense!
2) Eventhough it is a level-to-level transition, the levels in real space are spatially apart. So there must be some kind of movement involved? (And maybe that's why we really talk about escaping... How can you escape without moving?)

Please let me know what you think... This is something I want to clarify.
Thanks for the remarks
 
  • #18
sokrates said:
So there must be some kind of movement involved?

There is no generally accepted answer to questions like this. Different people have different answers, depending on which interpretation of QM they subscribe to. There's no way to decide the answer by experiment (at least not yet), so people argue about it on the basis of personal philosophical or metaphysical preferences.
 
  • #19
Hootenanny said:
An important point to realize is that the wave function does not correspond to any physically meaningful/observable quantities. When we say a wave function, it doesn't mean that the particle follows the path defined by the wave function, or that the particle oscillates like the wave function.

The wave function is merely a mathematical tool for describing a system of particles.

Isn't this so-called Copenhagen interpretation? Why is the Copenhagen interpretation being taken for granted here? In Bohm's version of quantum mechanics, the wave function does correspond to any physically meaningful/observable quantities. It will guide the particle how to move.
 
  • #20
feynmann said:
Isn't this so-called Copenhagen interpretation? Why is the Copenhagen interpretation being taken for granted here? In Bohm's version of quantum mechanics, the wave function does correspond to any physically meaningful/observable quantities. It will guide the particle how to move.

No, it's not the Copenhagen or any 'interpretation'. The wave function does not correspond to anything which is directly observable, and in that sense, it lacks any physical meaningl.

Any interpretation of the physical 'meaning' of the wave function is therefore precisely that: An interpretation. You cannot distinguish experimentally between interpretations (or they wouldn't be called interpretations, they'd be scientific theories). Saying "the wave function has meaning under the Bohm interpretation" is itself a rather meaningless position.
 
  • #21
f95toli said:
No one is saying that "movement doesn't make sense"; what we are saying is that the classical concept of speed doesn't make sense for an electron in an atom.

I don't see why it wouldn't. The classical concepts of location and trajectories do not make sense for electrons in an atom. But I don't see why that would make it meaningless to claim they have a velocity, since they quite obviously do have kinetic energy/momentum.

Also, the 'correct' picture usually given in these cases, of electrons occupying a kind of static 'density cloud' is also wrong. Because electrons still act as single particles, not interacting with themselves. And more importantly, electron motion is correlated. A multi-electron system constitutes a many-body problem of motion, even quantum mechanically.

Or to put it another way: Given the exact electronic density, [tex]\frac{1}{2}\int\frac{\rho(r)\rho(r')}{|r-r'|}drdr'[/tex] doesn't give the full energy of the electron-electron interactions. The dynamical effects of electron motion has a definite and measurable impact on the energy of atomic and molecular systems. You can't describe it as something that "has momentum but doesn't move" even if one was inclined to do so.

So it's neither something that can be described by treating the electrons as particles 'orbiting' a nucleus, or as simply occupying a static 'density cloud'. Even if the latter is undoubtedly more correct. Or less incorrect.
 
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  • #22
Quantom: as you have likely discerned by now , you have posed a classical physics question in the quantum physics section...hence some elaboration and confusion in responses...
 
  • #23
alxm said:
I don't see why it wouldn't. The classical concepts of location and trajectories do not make sense for electrons in an atom. But I don't see why that would make it meaningless to claim they have a velocity, since they quite obviously do have kinetic energy/momentum.

Also, the 'correct' picture usually given in these cases, of electrons occupying a kind of static 'density cloud' is also wrong. Because electrons still act as single particles, not interacting with themselves. And more importantly, electron motion is correlated. A multi-electron system constitutes a many-body problem of motion, even quantum mechanically.

Or to put it another way: Given the exact electronic density, [tex]\frac{1}{2}\int\frac{\rho(r)\rho(r')}{|r-r'|}drdr'[/tex] doesn't give the full energy of the electron-electron interactions. The dynamical effects of electron motion has a definite and measurable impact on the energy of atomic and molecular systems. You can't describe it as something that "has momentum but doesn't move" even if one was inclined to do so.

So it's neither something that can be described by treating the electrons as particles 'orbiting' a nucleus, or as simply occupying a static 'density cloud'. Even if the latter is undoubtedly more correct. Or less incorrect.

Very good point. We can't really strictly say that they are not moving; because of the exhchange interaction! (The entire many-body physics is founded on things like, Hartree-Fock approximation, exchange interaction correction etc...)

But how they move and how they correlate (say 2 electrons) each others motion still lacks a good concrete visualization.

In any case, this proved to be a delicate subject and I think the discussion is far from being resolved.
 
  • #24
alxm said:
No, it's not the Copenhagen or any 'interpretation'. The wave function does not correspond to anything which is directly observable, and in that sense, it lacks any physical meaningl.

Any interpretation of the physical 'meaning' of the wave function is therefore precisely that: An interpretation. You cannot distinguish experimentally between interpretations (or they wouldn't be called interpretations, they'd be scientific theories). Saying "the wave function has meaning under the Bohm interpretation" is itself a rather meaningless position.

No, it is not meaningless. The Bohm interpretation takes the Schrödinger equation even more seriously than does the conventional interpretation. In the Bohm interpretation, The wavefunction is treated as a complex-valued but "Real field". Just like Higgs field, it is not observable, but Higgs particle is observable. So the Higgs field is "real" if Higgs particles are detected at LHC.
See this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation
 
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  • #25
feynmann said:
No, it is not meaningless. The Bohm interpretation takes the Schrödinger equation even more seriously than does the conventional interpretation. In the Bohm interpretation, The wavefunction is treated as a complex-valued but "Real field". Just like Higgs field, it is not observable, but Higgs particle is observable. So the Higgs field is "real" if Higgs particles are detected at LHC.

But unlike the Higgs field, the Bohm interpretation makes no such predictions.

Until it does make a prediction, it's just a bit of metaphysics without 'real' physical meaning.
 
  • #26
Quantom said:
Do electrons in higher energy orbitals move faster than ones in lower energy orbitals?

Maybe there's an easy answer, but I don't know if it's what you were looking for.


The answer is written in the Uncertainty Principle: if you "confine" the "motion" of a particle, then its "momentum" will increase. Now, higher energy of the orbital means that is more bounded to the nucleus, and the probability of finding the electron is a function that drops to zero rapidly: The "Box" that contains the electron is small so its momentum will be high.
 
  • #27
Quantom said:
Do electrons in higher energy orbitals move faster than ones in lower energy orbitals?

Hello Quantom,
Being as these guys wrecked my old image of electron movement, everyone gets to see my new one. I still can't get any kind of picture in my mind about valance shells, and my hardest thing to see was the single electron, but here is my new thinking.
If I recall correctly the electron has different energy states and on a quantom scale, time and distance all but disappear.

The electromagnetic field at any level is a little springy so at any state, and at any point the electron is actually bumping it's own field, thus creating what is called the cloud (it's everywhere at the same time, if it could be viewed) this constant contact of it's own force causes it to average out all around the nucleus.

What prevents it from hitting the nucleus, might be the average of the magnetic field being converged, but I can't picture what would prevent it's going beyond a certain distance away from the nucleus.

For what it's worth that is what comes to my mind, so anyone can tear it to sherds, I will gain from whatever is said, no matter what.

Thanks
Ron
 
  • #28
condorino said:
Maybe there's an easy answer, but I don't know if it's what you were looking for.

The answer is written in the Uncertainty Principle: if you "confine" the "motion" of a particle, then its "momentum" will increase. Now, higher energy of the orbital means that is more bounded to the nucleus, and the probability of finding the electron is a function that drops to zero rapidly: The "Box" that contains the electron is small so its momentum will be high.

In higher energy orbital, the electrons move slower than in lower energy orbital, do they?

The energy of Helium ion is lower than Hydrogen atom.
The electron of Helium ion is closer to the nucleus by the stronger Coulomb force, So the velocity of the electron is faster than Hydrogen atom.

This difference of the velocity is showed by the difference of "the relativistic energy" between Helium ion and Hydrogen atom.
 
  • #29
ytuab said:
In higher energy orbital, the electrons move slower than in lower energy orbital, do they?

The energy of Helium ion is lower than Hydrogen atom.
The electron of Helium ion is closer to the nucleus by the stronger Coulomb force, So the velocity of the electron is faster than Hydrogen atom.

That doesn't address the point condorino was making at all. A hydrogen atom and helium ion are different potentials. Naturally the electron will have different energies.

The energy does increase if the electron is confined to a smaller space. That's easily shown from the solution to the hydrogen atom. Keeping the charge the same, the energy scales as [tex]\frac{1}{a_0^2}[/tex].

This difference of the velocity is showed by the difference of "the relativistic energy" between Helium ion and Hydrogen atom.

The relativistic energy of an electron is its energy when relativistic momentum is taken into account, i.e. solving the Dirac equation. It has a precise meaning. If you don't know what the term means I suggest you stop using it. It makes no sense to invoke it here.
 
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  • #30
RonL said:
The electromagnetic field at any level is a little springy so at any state, and at any point the electron is actually bumping it's own field, thus creating what is called the cloud (it's everywhere at the same time, if it could be viewed) this constant contact of it's own force causes it to average out all around the nucleus.

Electrons do not self-interact.

What prevents it from hitting the nucleus, might be the average of the magnetic field being converged, but I can't picture what would prevent it's going beyond a certain distance away from the nucleus.

Electrons 'hit' the nucleus all the time. (e.g. K-shell capture)
 
  • #31
alxm said:
That doesn't address the point condorino was making at all. A hydrogen atom and helium ion are different potentials. Naturally the electron will have different energies.

The energy does increase if the electron is confined to a smaller space. That's easily shown from the solution to the hydrogen atom. Keeping the charge the same, the energy scales as [tex]\frac{1}{a_0^2}[/tex].

The relativistic energy of an electron is its energy when relativistic momentum is taken into account, i.e. solving the Dirac equation. It has a precise meaning. If you don't know what the term means I suggest you stop using it. It makes no sense to invoke it here.

I just said that when the electrons are closer to the nucleus (the energy becomes lower),
the change of the relativistic mass is bigger (this means electrons becomes faster).

Actually, the relativistic correction of energy is more important when the electrons are closer to the nucleus (He +, Li++ is bigger than hydrogen)
 
  • #32
ytuab said:
I just said that when the electrons are closer to the nucleus (the energy becomes lower),
the change of the relativistic mass is bigger (this means electrons becomes faster).

Of course, higher energy orbitals are less bounded to the nucleus, they have big boxes and are slower. Sorry.
 
  • #33
ytuab said:
I just said that when the electrons are closer to the nucleus (the energy becomes lower),

And that is wrong. The energy increases if the electrons are closer to the nucleus than in the ground state. The ground state is the lowest-energy state. By definition, but also mathematically provable by the variational theorem.

the change of the relativistic mass is bigger (this means electrons becomes faster).

Uh, no. If their mass is bigger their velocity is slower for a given energy/momentum.

Actually, the relativistic correction of energy is more important when the electrons are closer to the nucleus (He +, Li++ is bigger than hydrogen)

So what? The relativistic correction to the electronic energy for He+ is less than 0.01% You don't know what you're talking about if you're invoking such a minuscule factor as an explanation here. You're side-tracking the discussion.
 
  • #34
alxm said:
And that is wrong. The energy increases if the electrons are closer to the nucleus than in the ground state. The ground state is the lowest-energy state. By definition, but also mathematically provable by the variational theorem.

Uh, no. If their mass is bigger their velocity is slower for a given energy/momentum.

So what? The relativistic correction to the electronic energy for He+ is less than 0.01% You don't know what you're talking about if you're invoking such a minuscule factor as an explanation here. You're side-tracking the discussion.

In the relativistic theory, If the velocity is faster, the mass is bigger. (The Dirac equation contains this effect. (So the velocity is not slower for given energy. Do you know the origin of Dirac equation ? Dirac equation(K-G equation) is made from relativistic momentum and relativistic energy(both contains relativistic mass))

The difference between the energy by Shrodinger equation and experimental value(ground state energy) is bigger in Helium ion(about 0.002ev) than Hydrogen(0.000..).

Please see the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_quantum_chemistry

It is written as follows (in the middle part)

A nucleus with a large charge will cause an electron to have a high velocity (But the total energy becomes lower(By Shrodinger equation). A higher electron velocity means an increased electron relativistic mass, as a result the electrons will be near the nucleus more of the time and thereby contract the radius for small principal quantum numbers

Many of the chemical and physical differences between the 6th Row (Cs-Rn) and the 5th Row (Rb-Xe) arise from the larger relativistic effects for the former. These relativistic effects are particularly large for gold and its neighbors, platinum and mercury.
 
  • #35
Suppose we place ena electron in the LHC and we accelerate it.
Say that we "launch it" at t=0. For t>0 we know "exactly" the position of the electron because it follows the classical laws. Ofcourse we have an inaccuracy Δx but it`s way small compared to the electron`s orbit.
Let`s say that the electrons wavefunction is Ψ. What will happen?
1)Starting at the point of launch, it will start spreading all the way of the 27km perimeter? That doesn`t make sense because then we would have no idea where the electron is.
What is really happening?
2)Ψ is like i.e. a gaussian packet that moves in space with a specific velocity?
 

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